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On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 09:27:39PM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
> Jordan:
> > On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 02:27:58PM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > > Jordan:
> > > > On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 11:07:16PM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > [...]
> > > > > The convenience of ke'a is exactly when you want to use one variable
> > > > > more than once. It saves having to use ce'u subscripting (also an
> > > > > unofficial convention), or nei/no'a subscripting (also unofficial),
> > > > > which also won't even work if neither instance of the variable is
> > > > > an argument of the selbri. The method that definitely will work is
> > > > > ko'a-assignment with goi, but that is cumbersome. So, ke'a is much
> > > > > more convenient than the alternatives
> > > >
> > > > Ok; you ignored the main point though: people almost *never* need
> > > > to repeat these things in practice
> > >
> > > None of us have very much basis for judging this, seeing as we have
> > > all of us written and read so little, but you have had more
> > > experience than me. All the same, in what I have read and written
> > > I have noticed that other people are generally happy to use anaphora
> > > that relies on glorking, while I am not and consequently find the
> > > problem to be a severe one. (It's not that I think glorking is bad,
> > > but the very thing that attracts me to a logical language is the
> > > extent to which it can feasibly reduce reliance on glorking.)
> >
> > Ok I can just tell you, that I see ka stuff a lot, and probably 1
> > in 100 (or less) have more than one ce'u in it. You can take my
> > word for this (I have about a conversation a day in lojban on irc)
> > or not
>
> But at no point was I talking about ka with multiple ce'u. I
> was talking about a bridi containing two sumti (not necessarily
> sumti of the same selbri) that are intended to be interpreted as
> coreferential.
Ugh, you know what I mean. Whether it means saying ce'u more than
once or not, people almost never need it. And when they do, they
can *usually* use "le nei" and such things.
> My own intuitions do tell me that ka with multiple ce'u will be
> rare. But they tell me that coreferential sumti will be frequent.
I believe that there's enough text already to proove you wrong about
that, though.
> > Anyway; I don't find "goi ko'a" particularly difficult. I would
> > use ce'uxipa though
>
> Think about how your usage and others' handles coreference, and
> how much of it requires no glorking. Or, as an exercise, try
> writing in a way such that coreference is handled in a glorking-
> free way. I'd be interested to see the results and to see whether
> you are happy with the mechanisms Lojban provides.
I very rarely use glorking anaphora. I use goi ko'a, ri, and lerfu
sumti the majority of the time. I do use "ra", but not nearly as
frequently. I also use vo'a (but vo'[eoiu] not very often).
> It is not that "goi ko'a" is horrendously difficult, but are you
> happy to use it every time you introduce a new referent in a
> text or a paragraph or a sentence?
Yes. It or lerfu sumti (which are also glork-free).
If I am only refering to it once or twice I'll just use things like
"ri", "le go'i", etc though.
> > > > WRT to subscripting; those are obvious and (afaik) uncontroversial
> > > > conventions which may very well be standard in a while
> > >
> > > Is your subscripting scheme on the wiki? I remember us discussing
> > > subscripting schemes (for nei/no'a) on one of the lists a while
> > > back and not reaching agreement on the details of the scheme or
> > > on what counts as a bridi (though iirc it was pc who disagreed
> > > with others about what counts as a bridi, so maybe that disagreement
> > > can be considered defunct)
> >
> > I was speaking of ce'u. Subscripting on nei is probably useless,
> > since you can just script no'a (which *is* book specified I think)
>
> There was no call for subscripting of ce'u previously, but I agree
> that your unofficial proposal is straightforward.
Funny. I think I read it on the wiki...
> Whether it is nei or no'a that is subscripted, one will want a way
> to count inwards from the root bridi and outwards from the local
> bridi. Even then it won't help for antecedents embedded within
> sumti.
Outwards, yes (that's what no'a does). Inwards makes less sense,
and probably isn't worth it.
> > > > > That said, if there are poi/poi'i embedded within poi/poi'i, ko'a
> > > > > assignment remains necessary, which is what led me to propose a
> > > > > range of experimentals to abbreviate KOhA-assignment
> > > >
> > > > Most of those abbreviation things are a bit of a joke though. You
> > > > have things like "goi'a" IIRC, which saves *one* syllable, and needs
> > > > preprocessor changes to work properly.
> > >
> > > If any require preprocessor changes then that was inadvertent error
> > > on my part, as I have striven to distinguish between what is and
> > > isn't baseline-compliant. (Preprocessor changes obviously aren't
> > > baseline-compliant.) I will check "goi'a" when I go online; my
> > > recollection was that I had proposed such a thing but moved it to
> > > the page for obsolete proposals, but I may have intended to move
> > > it but forgotten to actually do it
> >
> > It would've required processor changes to do it right. Putting it
> > into KU is a hack
>
> You have some notion of an aesthetic for the grammar of Lojban that
> I am not aware of. I of course have a powerful aesthetic sensibility,
> but it evidently doesn't coincide with yours.
It's not aesthetic, it's about doing it right. If you weren't
working around not changing the grammar/preprocessor, you'd do those
things by having replacements at the preprocessor level before
things go into the grammar. That way if the grammar is doing
analysis of such things the code doesn't need to grok different
lexer tokens for KU and such things which are supposed to be purely
structural, and will instead just read a "goi ko'a" or whatever.
> > > Because the scope for introducing glork-free anaphora is so limited,
> > > because of tight constraints on innovation, it is inevitable that
> > > experimental cmavo can ameliorate the problem to only a slight
> > > degree
> >
> > I'm not sure what the problem is?
>
> The problem of wanting to say explicitly what one means without relying
> on glorking. If you don't have the urge to avoid glorking, then you
> just need to accept that the urge to avoid glorking is a valid reason
> to be interested in a logical language and is a reason for wanting
> good ways to do glork-free anaphora.
I agree; glork-free stuff, along with avoiding metaphor, are things
that I think are part of the point of the language. However, I
don't think this is at all problematic currently in the pro-sumti
system.
> > > Regarding the saving of a single syllable, there is a sense in
> > > which the saving of words is desirable, regardless of whether it
> > > saves syllables. There are two reasons for this. The first is that
> > > since syllable-count was ignored in the design, the best way to
> > > do justice to the design, when exploring it through usage, is to
> > > ignore syllable-count. The second reason is that one can measure
> > > length not only in syllables but also in words (which are the units
> > > of input that the parser operates on)
> >
> > I highly disagree. Unless there are stops between the words for
> > some reason it doesn't count. I see no benifit to being shorter
> > in terms of words (esp. since a lot of words can get compounded
> > together also ("goiko'a", "lenu"). And having a relatively hackish
> > shorting cmavo just to save *one* syllable is pretty laughable
>
> You disagree, but you haven't argued against my reasons, so I note
> that you disagree, but see no reason to change my mind.
You said:
- It is desirable to save words instead of (just) syllables, because
a) We can ignore syllable length ("like the original design[1]")
b) We can count length in words, instead of syllables.
These are circular, so I don't consider them reasons....
[1] That the design ignored syllable length isn't even entirely
true btw; length in syllables wasn't a *primary* concern, but it
wasn't ignored---there's a reason why so many of the most common
cmavo are 1 syllable.
[...]
--
Jordan DeLong - fracture@hidden.email
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku
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