[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
| In a message dated 10/23/2002 9:57:45 AM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hidden.email writes: << >But, what if the arguments to {buska} are not individual terms? Then we do >> But with an ordinary predicate, I have all sorts of clues about what it means -- traslations, other uses, etc. All I know about {busku} is the two definitions, which do not generalize in any obvious way to new cases (which was why the new case of {lo'e} had to be defined separately). << Which move? {da po'u loi blabi}? Do you prefer {ko'a goi loi blabi}? Then: mi buska loi blabi = ko'a goi loi blabi zo'u mi buska ko'a = ko'a goi loi blabi zo'u mi sisku tu'o ka ce'u du ko'a Notice that the quantifier of {loi blabi} always remains outside of the ka. >> I think you have failed to understand the symbolism you are using. "\x" can be replaced only by a sigular term, one meant in context to refer to a single individual. {loi broda} is not such a term, thus, neither it nor a surrogate for it (something with the same referent) can be used to fill in the places occupied by lambda'd variables. This is the mistake you objected to so vigorously when I (following your apparent example) tried to do it with {lo'e broda} and {lo broda). Do stick to places you come to so vigorously at least -- shifting places you come to inadverently is perhaps excusable. << >Now, it may be that there is a way to deal with >{da poi du loi broda} that eventually gets down to the right form and can >then be reconstructed on the other side back to {da po'u loi broda}, but I >don't know of one and you don't offer one. You got it backwards. It starts on that side, it never moves in to {ka da poi du lo broda}. >> Only by a mere verbal trick and one that is illegitimate at that. You would be better showing how {loi broda} can be defined in terms of something about individual brodas which could then be conceptualized after {sisku} is a way that allowed eventually reconstructing {ka ce'u du loi broda}. << Some of these can be reduced to direct >references >to individuals -- {lo broda} for example. Others of them, (lo'e broda} and >(loi broda}, for now, cannot be -- or have not yet been shown to be. {lo'e broda} cannot be so reduced. I thought we had agreed at some point that {loi broda} can be reduced to direct references to individuals of the set of all possible masses of broda. If it cannot, then we have to look into how {loi broda} works, but as an argument of any predicate, not especially for {buska}. >> But, if it cannot be so reduced, then it cannot be dealt with by {buska} and {sisku} using the current definitions, since they provide only for individual terms and {lo'e}. << >So, in >Lojban, the lambda definition is incomplete precisely in leaving those >cases >without a defined meaning. But that applies equally to any predicate. {buska} is not special in this regard. >> Any given definition of an ordinary term may be incidentally incomplete, but we know how to fill it in. The definition of {buska} is essentially incomplete, since there are cases not covered and we haven't a clue how to fill them in. {buska} only exists inso far as it is covered by the definitions given -- it is a rewrite for certain {sisku} expressions. If we come to a case where we don't have a rewrite rule, we don't know what to do with it. << Which {sisku} sentence cannot be written in terms of {buska}? >> Well, the current case seems to be {mi sisku tu'o ka ce'u du loi broda}. << >So, what was worth adding a new predicate to the language? Nothing. The new predicate is added only as a means of explanation, not because it has any independent usefulness of its own. >> Then it is a dreadful (and time-wasting) failure, since it answers NO questions and raises a large number on its own, which do not arise without this strange new quasi predicate. << Nothing was gained in terms of expressiveness, indeed, by introducing {buska}. But most predicates are not like {buska} in having a convenient partner like {sisku} already defined in the gi'uste. >> But what do they need them for. You say that there is nothing new added by using {buska} rather than {sisku}. What would be added by using {kairbroda} rather than {broda}? {lo'e} ought at least do something that can't be done otherwise or do what it does remarkably more efficiently than the other way. I don't see doubling every predicate by at least one other one as efficiency. << >I have some nice slogans ("the actual behavior of the typical >man is the typical behavior of men") How would that go? Something like: lo'e remna ca'a tarti lo'e se tarti be lo'e remna Humans actually behave as humans behave. >> Well, that doesn't look right and not only because the {lo'e} is repeated unnecessarily. I would -- as a very tentative start -- come closer to {lo'e remna cu tarti lo nu loi remna na'o tarti}. But that still needs a lot of unpacking, and may not yet be a good starting point. << >Try explaining "the average man" in terms of it. (I must say that if you >can >do that -- or make a plausible start at it -- I have really misunderstood >what you are doing and will apologize all over the place for evcer doubting >you. But claim some credit for getting you to expatiate clearly).) I certainly won't claim that my {lo'e nanmu} is "the average man". It is "men in general". >> Well, I don't now think it is "men in general," just "men" in an intensional context, but that aside, I never thought it was "the average man." What I meant was that "the average man" seems to me to be a relatively well-worked-out case of the sort of thing that {lo'e} is and so the method you use to get your {lo'e} ought to be applicable with "the average man" as well, but I don't see how. << You will claim to not understand what {kairkalte} means, even though you understand {sisku} perfectly well. >> My problem is always with what {buska} means when it cannot be used to (or it is not clearly spelled out how it is used) to rewrite {sisku} senences. << You will claim that in buska:sisku::kalte:kairkalte there are two unknowns, even though {buska} is fully defined. >> Yews, because the second claim is, if not false, not demosntrably true (nor even a clue about how to make it true in some cases). << ><< >All slots of {buska} are ordinary >slots. {buska lo broda} behaves identically to any other >{brode lo broda} as far as quantifiers and intensionality is >concerned. > >> >Well, it doesn't seem to: {mi buska la crlakomz} = {mi sisku tu'o ka ce'u >du >la crlkakomz} No! >> Yes! {la crlakomz} is a paradigm case of an individual term and so just what can replace a lambda'd variable. << {mi buska la crlakomz} = {ko'a goi la crlakomz zo'u mi buska ko'a} = {ko'a goi la crlakomz zo'u mi sisku tu'o ka ce'u du ko'a} You can only move {la crlakomz} in if moving names in is licit in general. If names have intension then you can't do it. >> This would only be a problem if the name were first movced OUT. But there is no reason to do so here -- and it was never done with any other singular term. This is rampant adhocery to save you from an embarassment. Unfortunately, it undercuts all the rest you have done, because we now do not have a rule for lambda'd variable replacement either. << You just misapplied the definition. And don't say that I'm changing the rules. The definition was clear from the start. >> Yes, the definition is clear from the start and your adhoc rule change violates it. As I said earlier, don't use technical stuff if you don't know how. And don't try to change it if you don't like what it does. Use something that works your way insteda (but do explain it first). << No. You can never move {la crlakomz} in to start with. It has to remain outside from the get go. >> Where was it outside? My move is a paradigm application fo Def 1. << No. You can never move {la crlakomz} in to start with. It has to remain outside from the get go. >> Well, it is the old one about Orcutt or whatever and the master spy, but since I am relatively sure you will go throught the same absurd contortions to avoid, I'll not bother to write it out. If you are interested, it has been around often enough that you can reconstruct it yourself. As an afterthought, consider {mi sisku tu'o ka ce'u du la crlakomz} . Either this is, as it seems, a perfect case for Def 1, allowing the move to {mi buska la crlakomz}, or it cannot be translated into {buska} language, in which case, {buska} is incomplete as a rewrite rule -- and at a crucial point to. So, either {buska2} is intensional or {buska} fails to explain many interesting cases -- and so can only be considered as partially explaining {lo'e}. |