WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


tags as connectives

posts: 1912


>
> Can we arbitrarily pick a predicate and say it
> corresponds to a tag, even if there are no visible
> similarities?

Can we arbitrarily pick a predicate for a given tag?
Obviously not.

Does every predicate have a corresponding tag?
Yes, the one obtained with {fi'o}.

Can we find a predicate for any given tag?
Yes, but obviously not one picked arbitrarily.

> This makes the notion that there is a
> correspondence totally trivial and uninteresting.

Yes, it is trivial. I don't understand the objection.

>I
> can always — as you note — make something up. So why
> continue with this project? The claim you want to make
> is pointless and the claim you appear to make is
> false.

Which project? I am simply pointing out an irregularity
in the way tags work in Lojban.


> > The tag {fio se nenri} has a short form equivalent:
> {nei}.
> > The tag {fio nenri} does not have a short form. In
> other words,
> > in {broda fio nenri koa}, you cant replace {fio
> nenri} with
> > a short tag and get the same meaning.
>
> But this is just clearly wrong if the relation is to
> the predicates in {fio} phrases. The connection of
> {nei} is obviously with {nenri}, not {se nenri} --
> unless the connection is arbitrary.

The sumti tagged by {ne'i} is the container, the se nenri.
So {ne'i} is {fi'o se nenri}.

> In the latter
> case, the whole {fio} discussion is irrelevant, the
> connection is merely mnemonic and not reducible to
> some other relation.

I am lost as to what your objection is.


> > {bau} as sumti tcita tags a sumti which would be the
> x1 of {bangu},
> > i.e. the language. {bau} is {fio bangu}.
>
> Not in any obvious sense. {fio bangu} apparently
> hooks on a reference to a language, without any
> specification of how that is to be connected to the
> rest of the sentence, {bau} is quite precise (if not
> explicit) about what the connection is: the language
> mentioned is the language in which some vocal activity
> cited in the sentence is carried out (i.e. that
> activity is te bangu).

According to CLL, the cmavo of selma'o BAI are convenient
abbreviations of the corresponding fi'o tags, so at least
in theory {bau} is fully equivalent to {fi'o bangu}.


> > It is surprizing for someone who expects Lojban to
> be regular.
> > You cant learn a single rule for the relationship
> between
> > { gi ... gi ...} and {... i bo ...}. You need to >
> learn different rules for different tags.
>
> But the diferent tags belong to different categories,
> so one expects that they behave differently. Look at
> the distribution differences for the various regular
> connectives — which have different sources. To be
> sure, I would like to get rid of these differences --
> maybe even with tag connectives — but I am not
> surprised that the differences exist.

Ok, so for you it is not surprizing. For me it was,
when I tried to make sense of it and couldn't.


> > {gu X gi Y} would correspond to {Y iju X}
> > {segu X gi Y} would correspond to {Y iseju X}.
> >
> > Currently it is the other way around.
> Currently (since the other way around is ambiguous)
> {gu X gi Y} corresponds to {X iju Y} and
> {segu X gi Y} corresponds to {X segu Y},

(Actually as it turns out not really ambiguous because
{X iju Y} happens to coincide with {Y iseju X}. So either
way you understand "the other way around" is correct.)

which fits in
> exactly with the rules for the other A connectives,

The other A connectives are symmetric, so either rule will
fit in exactly with them.


> I expect that similar problems would
> arise from mucking about with {ba} or {ria} to fit
> them into one mold or the other.

The most intuitive method would have been to make the
tags take the corresponding x2 as the argument, so
{pi'o X} for "using X" instead of {se pi'o X},
{ri'a X} for "causing X", {seri'a X} for "caused by X",
etc. I know why it wasn't done like that, but that's
the source of most of the confusion. That's the way {pu}
and {ba} work with respect to their mnemonic cognates,
but not with respect to their fi'o-counterparts, of course.
If fi'o had worked like that, then the mnemonic and fi'o
counterparts would match for them too.

> I also suspect that
> the set up for the two different scheme depend upon
> the very different natures of the two sorts of tags
> involved.

I don't see how their natures are so different.
{purci} is "x1 precedes x2 in time", {rinka} is
"x1 precedes x2 in causal link". Similarly for
{balvi} and {jalge} when x2 follows x1. The difference
is that their corresponding tags ended up in different
selma'o.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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