WikiDiscuss

Posted by pycyn on Tue 22 of Feb, 2005 22:25 GMT posts: 2388

wrote:
xorxes:
> > > > > > {la prenu poi lo ke'a xirma ji'a sai
> cu
> > se
> > > > > > terpa},
> > > > >
> > > > > Not
> > > > > very snappy though.
> > > >
> > > > Just as snappy as the corresponding
> > > > description.
> > > >
> > > In English, I suppose you meant.
> >
> > No, I mean in Lojban:
> >
> > {la prenu poi lo ke'a xirma ji'a sai cu se
> > terpa}
> > vs. {le prenu poi lo ke'a xirma ji'a sai cu
> se
> > terpa}.
> >
> > If you can think of a snappier description in
> > Lojban,
> > you automatically get a snappier name.
> >
Thanks; this clarifies the problem considerably.
The fact that a "meaningful name" is
automatically taken to be a mere variant of a
description (as it really does seem to be in
Lojban) is the ultimate source of the problem,
since it makes all names endocentric, the
"description" applies to the referent, whereas,
in natural languages with functional descriptive
names they may be exocentric to varying degrees.
The most common endocentric forms name thhings
for what they are associated with (usually, for
humans, posessions), the two historic classics
being "Much Rice" ("bahuvrihi", also the Sanskrit
name for these compounds) and "Red Cap," the
English example. Both of these have been at
least Loglanized, the one as "possessor of much
rice" and "redly behatted" (back when clothing
had a place for the wearer). Cleaning this up
happily takes very little syntactic change,
merely a reinterpretation (or rather a ceasing of
an enforced interpretation) of {la redro mapku}
and {la piso'i rismi}. More remote cases (which
come closer to the Afraid-of-horses problem) are
more difficult, since the relevant expressions do
not compute in the site: "Raven-steals-the sun"
is basically a sentence, which cannot come after
{la} without converting at least partially to
description form:
{la la raven zerle'a be la sol cu klama} parses
about right, which may explain why book title
quotes disappeared at some point. Our NA name
then might be something like {ze'a terpa be le
ke'a xirma}. Unless there is some trap hidden in
the grammar that does not show up here. But all
that have turned up so far is that first
arguments have also to be nominalized — and
shifted back — if they would give rise to the
need for a {cu} other wise: {la se terpa be fa le
ke'a xirma be'o ze'a cu klama} works but {la le
ke'a xirma cu be ze'a cu klama} obviously would
not (though it works with {ku} in place of {cu}).
So, it seems that — given a few minor changes
which are, after all to be expected in going from
sentence to name — the problem I saw in Lojban
does not exist and only the habit of taking all
meaningful names as endocentric gave rise to the
appearance of a problem.

Posted by JohnCowan on Tue 22 of Feb, 2005 22:25 GMT posts: 149

John E Clifford scripsit:

> Cleaning this up
> happily takes very little syntactic change,
> merely a reinterpretation (or rather a ceasing of
> an enforced interpretation) of {la redro mapku}
> and {la piso'i rismi}.

No such enforced interpretation of tanru has ever
existed. Attempts have been made with fair success
to regularize the interpretation of lujvo, a very
different thing.

> "Raven-steals-the sun"
> is basically a sentence, which cannot come after
> {la} without converting at least partially to
> description form:

English is far more loose-jointed than other languages,
which are typically far less able to treat whole
sentences as NPs, even name NPs. I suspect the
true translation is Raven-who-steals-the-sun (i.e.
Total-eclipse), which is a proper NP and eminently
Lojbanizable.

--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Is it not written, "That which is written, is written"?

Posted by pycyn on Tue 22 of Feb, 2005 22:25 GMT posts: 2388

The real weakness is that Lojban probably needs
more UI3 discursives (or
previously semantically-analyzed brivla) for
things like "even", "mere",
"just", along with the po'o "only". There are
those who want these
logically analytical, and those who want a short
form that saves the
analysis. Lacking the analysis in a form short
enough to say without
thinking, people simply skip trying to express it
and make errors. I
think this is one of the real shortcomings of the
language at present;
words that are common in other language have no
easy expression in
Lojban, and few are competent to analyze the
logical implications of the
words they are trying to translate.

Having failed to get cmavo for them, at this
point I would try for
brivla and not try to make them dikyjvo, but
coming up with a list, and
a good pattern for making them as lujvo is
something I don't feel
linguistically or logically competent to do.

Tthere are a lot of gaps in Lojban and it would
be useful to get a list going of of ones like
these that we need. But saying "ones like these"
is a bit misleading, since these don't seem to
fit into any pattern and so it seems unlikely
that any one pattern of solutions will work for
all.
"only" has, of course, a completely general and
adequate expression (for its main uses — there
may be some obscure cases) in terms of
quantifiers and connectives, but no one uses it
(and half the people who look at it deny that it
works). It also a cmavo to help with at least
one awkward case ({ro klama bi la djan} for "Only
John came" becomes {la djan po'o klama}) which
has then been extended in questionable ways --
to cover predicates as well sumti and plurals as
well as singulars. Aside from legitimating those
extended uses (and CLL already goes a long way in
that direction), we surely don't need even more
for this concept.
"even" is trickier. "Even John came" used to be
analyzed as "Some other thant John came. John
came. It is surprising that John came." More
detailed accounts get to "It was prima facie
unlikely that John would come, but he did. Most
(all, many, enough) of the people that were more
likely than John to come came. ??No one less
likely to come than John came." So the crucial
factors are spread over several areas. 1. John
came (bare sentential claim) 2. The speaker's
surprise that John came (an attitudinal) based on
(it seems) 3. an initial unlikelihood that John
would come — surely a different kind of
attitudinal, even an evidential or a report of
(perceived) probabilities. 4. Other people came
and 5. they were a significant portion of those
expected (report and probability again). Now,
this combination occurs often enough to deserve
some collapsed form — and (as the sentence above
shows) one that can be used within modal contexts
as well as assertoric ones. It would appear to
have to be a free modifier, since it can apply to
(focus on) any point in the sentence.

"mere" (and one sense of "just" — another is a
version of "only") seems to add to a
straightforward claim an injunction (a negative
imperative)to not make a federal case of the
relevant event. A mere scratch is one that does
not justify whatever behavior is going on:
screaming, calling 911, or giving the kid ice
cream. A mere graduate student is one who is not
to be trusted on the topic, has no authority, and
so on. "Mere" is, in other words, an other-
directed directive: don't you do anything (that I
eould think extreme) about the situation.

Posted by pycyn on Tue 22 of Feb, 2005 22:25 GMT posts: 2388

wrote:
Our NA name
> then might be something like {ze'a terpa be le
> ke'a xirma}. Unless there is some trap hidden
> in
> the grammar that does not show up here.

I do not know how {ze'a} got into my head, but
what was intended was one or the other of {zo'e}
or {zu'i} and similarly throughout.
> But
> all
> that have turned up so far is that first
> arguments have also to be nominalized — and
> shifted back — if they would give rise to the
> need for a {cu} other wise: {la se terpa be fa
> le
> ke'a xirma be'o ze'a cu klama} works but {la le
> ke'a xirma cu be ze'a cu klama} obviously would
> not (though it works with {ku} in place of
> {cu}).
> So, it seems that — given a few minor changes
> which are, after all to be expected in going
> from
> sentence to name — the problem I saw in
> Lojban
> does not exist and only the habit of taking all
> meaningful names as endocentric gave rise to
> the
> appearance of a problem.
>
>
>
>

Posted by pycyn on Tue 22 of Feb, 2005 22:26 GMT posts: 2388

> John E Clifford scripsit:
>
> > Cleaning this up
> > happily takes very little syntactic change,
> > merely a reinterpretation (or rather a
> ceasing of
> > an enforced interpretation) of {la redro
> mapku}
> > and {la piso'i rismi}.
>
> No such enforced interpretation of tanru has
> ever
> existed. Attempts have been made with fair
> success
> to regularize the interpretation of lujvo, a
> very
> different thing.

Well, let us just say then that there is a marked
tendency for people to read them in that way, as
xorxes comments exemplify (and as at least two
discussions over the years — about Red Cap and
Much Rice, in fact — have also shown). So, the
point here is just to remind folks that they need
not be bound by this habit.

>
> > "Raven-steals-the sun"
> > is basically a sentence, which cannot come
> after
> > {la} without converting at least partially to
> > description form:
>
> English is far more loose-jointed than other
> languages,
> which are typically far less able to treat
> whole
> sentences as NPs, even name NPs. I suspect the
> true translation is Raven-who-steals-the-sun
> (i.e.
> Total-eclipse), which is a proper NP and
> eminently
> Lojbanizable.

Well, I think that, as a name,
"Raven-steals-the-sun" has next to nothing to do
with eclipses and quite a bit to do with the
range of cultural values which center on Raven as
the source of life and light, etc. In any case,
as noted, the changes that need to be made are
minimal — nominalization — and the result is
still an nice obviously exocentric name.
Unless I have missed something crucial.
> —
> John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
> http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> Is it not written, "That which is
> written, is written"?
>
>
>

Posted by xorxes on Tue 22 of Feb, 2005 22:26 GMT posts: 1912

> --- John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> > John E Clifford scripsit:
> >
> > > Cleaning this up
> > > happily takes very little syntactic change,
> > > merely a reinterpretation (or rather a
> > ceasing of
> > > an enforced interpretation) of {la redro
> > mapku}
> > > and {la piso'i rismi}.
> >
> > No such enforced interpretation of tanru has
> > ever
> > existed. Attempts have been made with fair
> > success
> > to regularize the interpretation of lujvo, a
> > very
> > different thing.
>
> Well, let us just say then that there is a marked
> tendency for people to read them in that way, as
> xorxes comments exemplify (and as at least two
> discussions over the years — about Red Cap and
> Much Rice, in fact — have also shown). So, the
> point here is just to remind folks that they need
> not be bound by this habit.

You and John seem to be talking at cross purposes here.
John said that there is no fixed rule to interpret
how a tanru component modifies another, but your point
has nothing to do with tanru, it would apply to
{la makpu} just as well.

> > > "Raven-steals-the sun"
> > > is basically a sentence, which cannot come
> > after
> > > {la} without converting at least partially to
> > > description form:

You could use {la du'u ...}

mu'o mi'e xorxes

__
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Posted by pycyn on Wed 23 of Feb, 2005 06:30 GMT posts: 2388

wrote:

>
> --- John E Clifford wrote:
> > --- John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> > > John E Clifford scripsit:
> > >
> > > > Cleaning this up
> > > > happily takes very little syntactic
> change,
> > > > merely a reinterpretation (or rather a
> > > ceasing of
> > > > an enforced interpretation) of {la redro
> > > mapku}
> > > > and {la piso'i rismi}.
> > >
> > > No such enforced interpretation of tanru
> has
> > > ever
> > > existed. Attempts have been made with fair
> > > success
> > > to regularize the interpretation of lujvo,
> a
> > > very
> > > different thing.
> >
> > Well, let us just say then that there is a
> marked
> > tendency for people to read them in that way,
> as
> > xorxes comments exemplify (and as at least
> two
> > discussions over the years — about Red Cap
> and
> > Much Rice, in fact — have also shown). So,
> the
> > point here is just to remind folks that they
> need
> > not be bound by this habit.
>
> You and John seem to be talking at cross
> purposes here.
> John said that there is no fixed rule to
> interpret
> how a tanru component modifies another, but
> your point
> has nothing to do with tanru, it would apply to

Ooops! I missed that though I was puzzled by his
remark about lujvo.

> {la makpu} just as well.
>
>
> > > > "Raven-steals-the sun"
> > > > is basically a sentence, which cannot
> come
> > > after
> > > > {la} without converting at least
> partially to
> > > > description form:
>
> You could use {la du'u ...}
>
I expect I would prefer {nu} but I don't find {la
la raven zerle'a be la sol} bad at all and even
{la cadzu be fa le nanmu bei lo djacu} is
acceptable, with {la le nanmu ku cadzu be lo
djacu} slightly better.