As usual, the fluctuating and I'll-documented terminology and the sketchy presentation has given me a false impression of what was claimed to be going on. Specifically:
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On Oct 14, 2012, at 1:37 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@hidden.email> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 3:07 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@hidden.email> wrote:
> ________________________________
> From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@hidden.email>
>
> Then notice that we can always replace "la ccca" by "la je ccca nu
> ddda" and "le je ccce ddde" by "le je ccce ni ddde" so that the x1
> and x2 of a quantifier can always be filled by two almost identical
> expressions, differening only in ni/nu.
It should be noted that these are two separate replacements, Nootka the same one inn two occurrences.
> This replacement seems illegitimate if are trying to preserve form, since
> you are replacing ccc by two different things.
I'm replacing "ccca" by "je ccca nu ddda", which is legitimate because
"nu ddda" is a tautology.
'nu' is at least once explicitly said NOT to be related to Lojban 'u' but here apparently is (or is 'nu' really the tautology marker, an even more useless connective?). Given the context and the lack of information, I took these to be negation and affirmation. I now don't see how this is meant to work at all again.
> I admit that I don't see the
> point of this, since I don't see the difference between farmers that have to
> donkeys and farmers that have donkeys whether or not they beat them.
There's no difference, that's why you can replace one with the other.
But that is not the replacement you appear to be making in the English text, which affirmation and denial (of some sort).
> I
> suppose it is somehow to get around the problem of donkey sentences, but I
> don't see exactly how it is done in a satisfactory way -- at best it seems
> to say that there are more farmers that have donkey they beat than there are
> farmers that don't have donkeys they beat (including those with no donkeys
> at all).
No, it compares farmers that have donkeys and beat them versus farmers
that have donkeys whether or not they beat them. Farmers that don't
have donkeys never enter into it.
Not the contrast presented. It is not quite clear what is intended because the possibilities are not well- defined: what about farmers with several donkeys, some of whom they beat, others not?
> Ah, but I see that you have inserted the nib inside the scope the
> quantifier, making the interesting case even less like the pattern. The
> issue of fusion within scope differences probably needs some examination.
> It may be that this technique actually works, but it is not clearly
> justified by this explanation.
Not sure what you mean. What's the objection?
So we have farmers who have donkeys they beat and farmers who have donkeys they either beat or not, but we are interested inis either the farmers who beat some of the donkeys they and those that have donkeys but eat none of them or the first group and those farmers who have donkeys they don't beat.
> So instead of "la prna le li ckli nlceki mstake" we can say "la je
> prna ni'u li ckli nlcaki msta", which uses one fewer variable,
>
> But adds a superfluous connective of some sort and changes the predicate
> without warning -- not good logical moves.
Why without warning? One is a unary predicate and the other is a
binary predicates, and that is shown by the number of variables.
Predicates have fixed number of arguments; this kind of ambiguity is not acceptable without an awful lot of conventions in place. None are here.
> lo je ckfa ni'u ldra prfra'aka
> "I prefer my coffee with milk."
> (From the choices of coffee whether with milk or not with milk, I
> prefer coffee WITH milk.)
>
> Do we also get nu'i for the negative preference?
Since "ni'u" is "ni" compared to "nu", if we wanted something for "na"
compareed to "nu" I'd suggest "na'u" rather than "nu'i". But we can
just use "ni'u na".
See earlier. And my ongoing comment about how premature lexicalization detracts from clear discussion of grammar. |