WikiDiscuss

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> On 6/9/05, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > --- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > BAI rule, which was never meant as an
> absolute
> > > but merely as a guide in any case.
> >
> > If they are only meant as guides, why do you
> keep
> > insisting on taking them literally when
> simpler
> > and more direct reading make more sense
> > practically? Loosen up and be practical.
>
> I take them literally because I meant them
> literally.

But it is fairly clear that the original
intention ofthe dictionary writers was not
literal. Hence the conflicts, changes, and
additions of nonsense.

> The "rule" goes something like this: When the
> underlying
> selbri of a BAI has an available place suitable
> for a bridi, the
> most natural interpretation for the added place
> is given by
> the relationship established by the underlying
> selbri between
> that place and the main bridi in the available
> suitable place.
>
> Not all underlying selbri have a suitable place
> for a bridi,
> so this rule is not always applicable.

And occasionally results in garbage even when
applicable.

> Which example do you have in mind where a "more
> direct" reading
> makes more sense? How can you have a more
> direct reading than
> that?

So, "more direct" is a bad choice of words: try
"more natural or useful." The two classic cases
so far have been {du'o}, which functioned nicely
as "according to" and now has been shifted by
literalness to "as is known by," which has very
little use, and {ri'anai} which worked pretty
well for "despite" and now has been shifted to
some negative causal matter (rarely used) and
"despite" taken over by a more literally correct
but unwieldy complex.

> For those cases where the underlying selbri has
> no available
> place for a bridi, I find that the most natural
> interpretation
> for {broda BAI ko'a} is something like {lo nu
> broda cu nu ko'a BAPLI},
> where BAI is fi'o BAPLI.
>
> > > Not sure what definition you're looking at.
> > > {NU bridi KEI} converts a bridi to a
> selbri.
> >
> > Notice the difference between {nu} "X1 IS
> > STATE/PROCESS/ACTIVITY/ACHIEVEMENT OF
> BRIDI"
> > and {du'u} "X1 IS PREDICATION BRIDI
> EXPRESSED
> > BY X2"
>
> {nu...kei} has a single place and {du'u...kei}
> has two places,
> that's a difference.

But {du'u} is never — I couldn't find a case --
used in this way, but rather as a simple
predicate with a bridi expression incorporated
into structure, exactly like {nu} in fact.

> > So, as noted, x1 is a bridi (in spite of the
> fact
> > that can't be a sumti) and x2 is a sentence,
> > presumably quoted to make it available for
> use.
>
> I think you are confused here. A sumti can
> refer to anything at all,
> in particular it can refer to a bridi, just
> like "proposition" is a noun in
> English that refers to a proposition.

The point is, what is the natureal sumti to
refewr to a bridi (taking this in the
non-linguistic sense). We can call it anything,
but at some point we have to give it a structural
name. Since we cannot at this point use {du'u}
(circularity is messy and it won't work in this
case anyhow) we are left with a sentence (bridi
in the linguistic sense) as the only strutural
way to refer to a bridi. But sentences are not
sumti, and so cannot go in the x1 position of
{du'u}. Similarly, x2 has to refer to a sentence
and the best structural way to do that is with a
quote. This is a sumti at least, but I have
never seen it used; we say {du'u ko'a co'e} not
{du'u li ko'a co'e li'u}. And, more forcefully,
we do not use {le du'u be ...} just {le du'u
...}. We can almost always avoid these
problems, of course, by calling the proposition
"Alfred" and the sentence "Bruce" and by pointing
(at the sentence at least) when asked to identify
it (notice that {ko'a} can't be assigned
structurally), but in fact we don't do that at
all. I think, in short, that the definition
should be rewritten to reflect our uniform usage.

> > It could be argued that it goes the other
> way, of
> > course, but it must be one or the other to
> make
> > any sense at all (even the bad sense it
> makes).
>
> The bridi goes in x1 and the sentence in x2,
> that's how it has
> always been and that's what the definition
> says.

But it has never been done that way, even in CLL.

> > As noted, it has regularly been used as "X1
> IS
> > THE PROPOSITION THAT BRIDI" and never as
> > described.
>
> "x1 is the proposition that bridi as
> expressed in sentence x2",
> yes.

Never ever done (well, if you find a case, let me
know).

> > It has, in fact never been used as a
> > relation so far as I can tell.
>
> NU's are hardly ever used as relations, they
> are almost
> always used as descriptions, yes, but "never"
> is a bit
> strong.

Frinstance?

> >
> > > The selbri {du'u bridi kei} has two
> places,
> > > the
> > > first one for the proposition and the
> second
> > > one for
> > > a sentence that expresses the proposition.
> > > For example: {ko'a du'u ko'e klama kei
> ko'i}
> > > Where {ko'i} refers to the sentence "ko'e
> > > klama"
> > > and {ko'a} refers to the proposition
> expressed
> > > by
> > > that sentence.
> > >
> > Yes, except that {ko'a} cannot refer to a
> bridi
> > since it is a replacement for a sumti.
>
> Of course {ko'a} can refer to a bridi, whyever
> not?

I meant that it cannot be assigned a bridi
directly, by the natural structural description
because that natural description is not a sumti.

> > {di'u} or
> > some such thing could be used in the second
> > place, since it refers to a sentence.
>
> Yes. And {ko'i} can also be assigned to refer
> to a sentence.
>
> > I meant that, since {du'u} is not a relation
> > (definition to the contrary notwithstanding)
> {se
> > du'u} makes no sense, xorxesian rules or not.
>
> {du'u bridi kei} is a two-place relation, and
> can be converted
> with SE like any other selbri.
>
> Other NU's with more than one place include ni,
> li'i, pu'u
> and probably some other I'm forgetting.

{jei, si'o, su'u and zu'o}

Ahah! Looking at the other cases makes the
definition of {du'u} somewhat clearer since the
others do not involve linguistic items in the
same way. The "bridi" in the definition does
not refer — as it appears to on first reading --
to x1, but to inserting the bridi at that point
in the whole, a convention used for all the
abstracts but different from the one used for,
say, MOI which indicates the insertion (not very
well) in a different way and several other places
where "[]" is used to clarify restrictions on
places or on meanings (which is also done
elsewhere with parentheses). So, while you are
reworking cmavo definitions it might be a good
idea to revise and standardize these indicators.
The present "system" is ambiguous to the point of
occasionally being misleading (as just demonstrated).