WikiDiscuss

Posted by daltong on Sat 02 of Apr, 2005 00:24 GMT posts: 4

This I want to see. Because to me it looks utterly bogus --- nitcion.

• If 5 years ago I had (by some sort of timewarp) seen this discussion with the attributions removed, I'd have bet that the bits written by you were written by me and the bits written by me were written by you. You're now the one taking an ultra-hard line. Conceptually, the hardline is nicer than what I've proposed on these pages. But (a) I think gismu blotation is a big problem and one for which there is no other solution in sight, (b) I very strongly expect that your hardline will not survive usage. And it's not just because of slack usage, either: if we learn a brivla from usage, and its final sumti place is always left implicit (-- which is not implausible), we never learn that final sumti place, and end up having learnt a different brivla. So all in all, yes, I accept the principle that the brivla meaning is defined by the placestructure, but all in all, the way this is implemented in Lojban (e.g. by dependent-marking rather than head-marking; with much blotation; etc.) makes me feel fairly strongly that that principle cannot survive. --And

Okay. Here goes.

• In usage, if people said (in standard grammar) what they mean, then lots of implicit sumti would have to be filled with overt zi'o.
  • Usually this is inadvertent, though I expect that most of those who do this inadvertently don't really care about this sort of error, because it so rarely impairs communication.
  • Sometimes it is advertent, with places of bloated gismu being left unfilled in the hope that through desuetude they will wither and die. But mere desuetude is insufficient to annul a sumti place; we would also need some sort of evidence that the speaker was actually expressing a meaning equivalent to the empty place being zihoed, yet this sort of evidence must be pretty hard to come by.
• Many gismu are bloated. We would like to ziho off many of their sumti places, but are all pretty much in agreement that filling them with overt zi'o is unworkable.
• The range of meanings covered by zi'o broda is a superset of the range covered by zo'e broda, so the proposed convention does not reduce the range of meanings expressed by the current convention.
• The downside to the proposal is that each selbri potentially has as many polysemes as it has permutations of filled and unfilled places. But I don't see this as a problem: for example, even if mamta in ko'a mamta, which would mean ko'a mamta zi'o, could in principle mean something different from mamta in ko'a mamta fo'e, in practise they would mean the same thing, because the most natural interpretation of ko'a mamta (zi'o) is ko'a mamta da. The effects of the convention would only bite in the case of predicates where it makes good semantic sense to ziho off a place, and in these cases the effect of the proposal is to require the presence of an overt zo'e so as to express the intended polyseme.
• The polysemy, then, would be limited to cases where it actually makes good sense, and as usage develops, the polysemy could be recorded in future dictionaries.
• This is not so distinct from the situation that will arise from the status quo, except that because zo'e is not obligatory in places that could sensically be annulled, it is much harder to discern what is going on in place-structure usage.
• The proposal would not totally eradicate bloated gismu syndrome, because someone could still learn the bloated places from documentation and then use them, but I think that force of usage would tend to kill that off (-- Why use a sumti place that nobody else can remember the meaning of?). But bloated gismu syndrome would be much less of a problem, because one would only need to learn the places that actually get used.

--And

Treasonous balderash.

• Lojban is pro-drop. I damn well know that if I say ko'a mamta, I don't mean ko'a mamta zi'o, but ko'a mamta zo'e.
  1. Yes, in the sense that you know the Insert-Zohe rule. But the actual logical formula you intend to express is almost certainly going to be ko'a mamta da or ko'a mamta fo'e. Now, the only sensible interpretation for ko'a mamta would be ko'a mamta da. (This is less the case when zi'o can never be implicit, because nobody would say ko'a mamta zi'o when they mean ko'a mamta da, since it's antigricean.) But what if you want to express the meaning ko'a mamta fo'e? Well, I think that in context, da broda can implicate fo'e broda, especially if the da is implicit. (If the da were explicit then it would be antigricean, raising the question "Why say da when you mean fo'e?") Here's an example. In English, I read. and I ate. mean "mi cilre/citka da". But I picked up the magazine and read pretty strongly implicates "read it". Even in a context where I'm on the train, catch someone's eye, point to the newspaper and say "Can I read?" — which is of course not a normal thing to say — it still seems to clearly implicate "Can I read it?".
  2. A better testcase is whether when you say da vi pixra you (Nick) are always claiming that da actually depicts something, or whether you do not intend to exclude pictures that don't depict anything. Even if you yourself are scrupulous about this, are you at confident that the average comparatively fluent Lojban speaker is? I'm not. I think it would be preferable to have da vi pixra mean "Here's a picture", and to claim that the picture actually depicts something you'd need to say da vi pixra zo'e or da vi pixra de.
  • ko'a mamta entails ko'a mamta zo'e. Logically, ko'a mamta zo'e does indeed mean ko'a mamta da. The implicature ko'a mamta fo'a can be generated; but it's just an implicature, and zo'e includes da and fo'a in its denotation. In fact, da includes fo'a. So big deal. --n
  • If a Lojbanist can say pixra for things that pixra noda, they might as well say citka for people that citka noda. pixra does not mean 'picture'. It means 'relation of depiction between x1, a picture, and x2, a depicted. If the average fluent Lojbanist is using pixra to refer to nondepicting entities, then he's misusing the predicate pure and simple. Or what do you think? That Lojban does not have a surfeit of people asking broda ma every time they talk? i thought the discussion between xorxes and xod on djuno was pointless, but I now remember gleefully that every time xorxes said jetnu, xod screamed jetnu ma. (And the answer was always le se djuno cu jetnu le ve djunoxorxes) As well he should. Because in that instance, xod grokked Lojban. You don't like the fact that pixra involves depiction? Tough. You should have protested the x2 of pixra when you had the chance. Now, pixra does not mean picture, dammit. It means depiction. n
• If the most natural interpretation of ko'a mamta zi'o is ko'a mamta da, then why is the natural interpretation of ko'a botpi fo zi'o not ko'a mamta fo da? If zi'o does not undefine places everywhere, but only where it semantically 'makes sense', then you're translating polysemy and pragmatic loading from the gismu to the cmavo. Don't. We now know what zi'o means. If this gets through (which it won't), then zi'o will be blanched of meaning; it will end up meaning zo'e much of the time anyway. So you're back where you started.
  • On the mamta/botpi issue, the difference is that it's hard to conceive of a mother without progeny, but easy to think of a lidless bottle. Under my proposals, zi'o would be pragmatically distinct from zo'e if and only if the distinction makes sense for the predicate in question. My proposals do not necessarily constitute a revised conception of zi'o per se, since the definitions of predicates can often include existentially quantified variables that do not get expressed syntactically by an overt sumti. For example, 'denti'/'tooth' involves as part of its definition "If x is denti then Ey x consists of material y", regardless of the fact that 'denti' rightly has no x3 place for material. So jubme fe zi'o ("table of material zi'o") should similarly not entail that materiality is not a necessary property of the predicate's sense.
    • Congratulations on turning me into xod. A botpi isn't a bottle, man. It's a lidded bottle. By definition. The problem is in the place structure of botpi --- and in your assumption that it must must must match the denotation of 'bottle'. To say a botpi is a bottle, and potentially lidless, but a mamta is a mother, and not potentially without progeny is defining English, not Lojban. You know very well what a mamta be zi'o is: it's a fertile woman. Where do you get off using English keywords to describe botpi be zi'o as plausible and mamta be zi'o as implausible?
      • I (kreig.daniyl.) have taught myself botpi/patxu as "lidded container/any container". Since doing so, I've swhly noticed that jars really do have more in common with bottles (similar liddedness) than with pots (similar shape) - so the distinction makes more sense to me than the English one. The keywords simply have nothing to do with the meaning - in fact, my family has several lidded pots which do in fact patxu but which also botpi. For gricean reasons, I believe that any jbojbe would refer to them as botpi.
      • Craig, normally I take issue with everything you say , but here you're spot on. Yes, the distinction between botpi and patxu is different from that between bottle and jar.
    • If jubme fe zi'o does not entail that materiality is necessary to tablehood, then you're humpty-dumptying zi'o (and mamta, and botpi). And the teeth thing is a logical fallacy. An unmarked place may still be essential to the definition; that does not mean a place marked explicitly as inapplicable can also be inapplicable. If jubme fe zi'o does not entail that materiality is necessary, why are you putting zi'o in there at all? And why is it different from botpi be zi'o, the whole point of which is to make lids unnecessary to bottles?
• You're breaking the understanding of 1000 functioning gismu, to remedy a bloated 300, as an active tinkering programme. That's intolerable. If you're going to set up contexts in which zi'o does and does not actually remove places from the definition, why don't you be honest about it and state that information where it belongs: in the lexicon.
  • The change would validate a lot of usage, would invalidate little, would remedy the bloated gismu, would not make anything unsayable (since overt zo'e or da or ko'a would still be an option), and would remedy the problem of zi'o signally failing to be suitable for the job is was supposed to do.
• Even if bloated places were skimmed off the gismu list tomorrow, zi'o as default interpertation would still leave fear and uncertainty as to what people mean when they are being elliptical. Things shouldn't be decided when people ellipse. They should remain undecided. zo'e is the more conservative interpretation in that case: it leaves the place contents undecided, it doesn't decide they are empty. (Unless you redefine zi'o - as you do - to make it decide they're empty only conditionally. Which is rank adhoccery.)
  1. I can't actually think of any examples, off the top of my head, where fear and uncertainty should arise. Part of what I'm proposing is tantamount to abolishing syntactic elliptizability of sumti: the only syntactic sumti are the ones overtly present, but the effects on the meaning of the selbri vary from brivla to brivla, being part of the lexical entry for the brivla, in particular part of the specification of the sense of the brivla.
  2. What do you mean by "decide that [place contents] are empty"? I'm not suggesting a redefinition of zi'o, so much as a revision in our understanding of it. (Not mere sophistry: I really think those two things are different.) I don't think zi'o ever meant that a place was empty; it meant that it needn't figure in the definition of the selbri. Now, if every zi'o has to be overt, then the only point in using it is to signal that a place doesn't figure in the definition of the selbri. But if zi'o could be implicit, then that contingency ("needn't figure...") becomes significant, and would effectively mean "doesn't figure, if it makes sense for it not to figure, and otherwise, if it doesn't make sense for it not to figure, does figure".
  • So, when it's explicit, it means one thing, and when it's implicit, it means something else. And this is not casuistry. Riight --n.
• The range of means is a superset?! doi And, we're not talking denotation. We're talking sense. Just because the denotation of leaner gismu is a superset of the fatter ones, doesn't mean you should go ahead and assume the leaner gismu: the meaning *does* change, in a not backwards-compatible fashion.
  • It's not backwards-compatible with Correct usage, but is arguably more compatible with actual usage than the current rule is.
• If Jorge is saying stuff like this, then he deserves a lot of the flak that you have been copping. And I'm starting to believe he does anyway.
  • Since he is embarrassed by my bouquets, he'd probably welcome the odd brickbat. Plus, flak from you is quite fun flak...
    • I do deserve any flak that And gets, as I tend to agree with him about most things. Also, I am embarrased and very flattered by And's bouquets, and as usual welcome any fun flak from Nick.
• CLL is baselined. Feel free to do this; and expect me to misunderstand you and follow the established zo'e convention. CLL conventions should only be jettisoned when demonstrably bogus; the motivations you have presented are not enough to do the trick.
  • True. I bet, though, that if we could silently put the proposed convention into operation — e.g. if people started using it without advertising the fact — then nobody would notice (except that the occasional overt zo'e might be a telltale sign). It might even improve comprehension...
    • This was actually the gist of the comment of mine that started this off. There were some adamant claims that lu'i no da cu se cmima was true, meaning that the empty set is a set, so I suggested that the rule for empty places in practice would become that they are filled by zi'o. I also have the impression that the bloating of gismu happened as a result of an implicit assumption that this would be the rule. How do we say stripes? We don't have a word for it? Let's add a place to tirxu, and we can also use it for zebras in te tirxu xirma , where the x3 of tirxu is the only place that intervenes. --xorxes
      • Then whoever was insisting on this was a damn fool, and you're another. se cmima does not mean 'set'. It means 'thing with membership'. Which means 'non-empty set'. You want a general term for 'set', you know where to find zi'o. A mathematical set is zilselcmi, pure and simple. And I will not have the interpretive conventions of Lojban destroyed because people can't be arsed using zi'o where they should. --n
        • Well, I was defending the same position you're defending now, with the same argument, that se cmima is a thing with members, so that must make you a fool too. --xorxes
        • Nononono, Xorxes. Then, you were sane to insist that se cmima is a thing with members. Now, you're just coming around again.
      • And I doubt severely that gismu bloating had anything to do with this. The x3 of tirxu is insane, but its insanity is far likelier to be "duh, tigers, stripes, intrinsic" than the psychopathy of "oh, your shirt is looking very be-tigered today." --n
        • I have a faint memory of reading somewhere that the US flag was be-tigered. In some old ju'i lobypli maybe. --xorxes
        • *shrug* I could do the supplication and find out, but this really doesn't sound like the way gismu places were coined back in the day... But then, I've blocked all memory of my life before this year. I always do.

(... meaning, I presume,.i mi djica sisti lenu morji roda pe lemi nunji'e zi'epe tu'o bi'i ke'o le nanca be le nu morji . How do we anaphorise the latter tense again? Clearly not nau...)

• If you sisti le nu morji ro da, you could still morji su'o da. You want roda outside.
• Is ke'o meant to be ke'i? It still seems ungrammatical. Between tu'o and what?
• The x2 of nanca is a number. le nu morji can't be a number.
• Maybe ro da pe le nu mi jmive pu le ca nanca zo'u mi djica sisti le nu morji da i mi roroi go'i. I think ca should fall within the scope of roroi as wanted. --xorxes

I (mi'e maikl.) can't help but see this page in the context of the style
I have been developing (lesi'o sumykuntybri) , & accepting the proposal would turn all utterances on the order of ".i broda
brode" into a mass of nonsensical zi'o's. For me, unfilled sumti positions
are norje'u, like Schroedinger's Cat. For those ZI'OISTS who can't
tolerate ambiguity, there is indeed a way to write in the style which
best fits your personality. But it doesn't have to be made the rule
for everyone.