BPFK Section: lerfu Shifts
Jorge Llambías <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
>--- John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> You could always base them on se.a, se.e, se.o (or na.onai) and .unai
>> So: {se bu .a bu}, {tei se bu .a bu foi}, or {se zei .a bu}.
>>
>> Somehow this misses the goal. Of course there are the internal
forms:
>> {najabu} and the like.
>{najabu} won't work, as {na ja} is two words and {bu} takes just one.
Well, one can’t help being suspcious of the definition of “word” invovled there, but the parser does seem to insist on it (in its usual deterministic but wrong-headed way). So we need – and {sei} seems to be it – a way to make one word out of the lawfully two.
>> OK. How exactly are alphabet selectors to be expressed?
>I think it works like other shifts: any lerfu that comes after the
>selector will be taken to be in that alphabet until a new alphabet
>is specified. So if you want just one symbol you have to return to
>the normal alphabet after it.
Yeah, but how are the selectors expressed? That is, what goes after {zai} to indicate what alphabet is selected? I was operating on the idea that this was coded into letters; xorxes seems to thing that a descroptive phrase is called for. Which is right or are both permitted?
>> Presumably if the wff was part of a Lojban text it would use
>> the MEX module, in which case the implication would be some
>> operator and you would not have to mention the symbol by name.
>> But I don't know if MEX is really up to the task.
>>
>> No more do I, which is why I am looking at this (which, I think,
actually is
>. a part of MEX).
>{ni'e} turns a selbri into an operator, so {ni'e nibli},
>or {ni'e brodynibli} (whatever brivla means "implication")
>could be used for the implication in an expression.
I think there are two different actions involved here, the analog of spelling – what does the expression look like – and the analog of reading – what does the expression mean. The {ni’e} trick is fine for the latter (the usual way we would use a formula), but the spelling form is also valuable – for teaching and for metatheory and that is what I am trying to figure out how to do. It’s too bad we don’t have a short, clear word for “arrow” (the lujvo look as much like spear as anything).