TECH: RE: do djica loi ckafi je'i tcati
i.alexand...@oasis.icl.co.uk
> Apparantly I was on vacation or simply not paying attention when this got
> resolved. .u'u Sorry.
No regrets necessary - I don't think we've got all the wrinkles out of
this yet.
la xorxes. cusku di'e
> On the other hand, it can be thought in a different way and it doesn't work.
> I'll change to {nitcu} instead of {djica} to avoid having to use {tu'a}.
Ummm... {nitcu} is one indication we haven't got all the answers yet.
Being _able_ to use {tu'a} gives us a way of making a distinction
which isn't easy otherwise.
> What is the meaning of: {mi nitcu lo tanxe}?
> Is it "I need something which is a box", or is it "there exists at least
> one box such that I need it"?
I believe it has to be the latter.
> > 9) "do djica tu'a loi ckafi ji loi tcati lu'u"
> Well, I agree this is a solution, but I don't think it is the right general
> solution. In the case of {djica}, it would seem that {tu'a} has to be used
> anyway to avoid illegal sumti raising, so that the example is a bad one. When
> there is no sumti raising, e.g. {do nitcu lo tanxe ji lo dakli}, using {tu'a}
> seems wrong.
I look at it from the opposite point of view. I took examples like these
as indications that there is some sumti raising going on. But there's
a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that this isn't the whole answer.
We have several gismu, one of whose places may need to be filled with
something of the form "any-old-<x>". Last I remember, there were three
different styles of place definition for these - {sisku} takes a property,
{djica} takes an event, and {nitcu} takes a concrete sumti. It could be
that all gismu of this type (and I'm not sure how you spot them all)
need to take an abstraction, at least as an option, in which case {tu'a}
works. And in that case any such gismu which didn't allow an abstraction
would not be usable to express the any-old-<x> case.
Or maybe there's something else going on. Natlangs seem to avoid the
issue, or use constructions like any-<x>-whatever to emphasise the point.
But I don't see how you carry that over into a logical language.
> {do nitcu lo tanxe ji'e dakli} may be all right, depending on
> what is the answer to my question above, but an appropriate sumti connective
> would be nice too.
> Since it would be very simple to allow BAIs to work like that (they're already
> allowed in forethought form, so why not in afterthought also?), I don't see
> any reason not to.
> At least {mau}, {me'a}, {du'i}, {li'e}, {pa'a}, {fa'e}, {ba'i} and {do'e} can
> be given good use in this function.
This appears to be off into hyperspace. I hope I'm misunderstanding you. :-)
mu'o mi'e .i,n.
Chris Bogart
>
>> Is it "I need something which is a box", or is it "there exists at least
>> one box such that I need it"?
>
>I believe it has to be the latter.
>
>issue, or use constructions like any-<x>-whatever to emphasise the point.
>But I don't see how you carry that over into a logical language.
How to say "I need a box [any-box-whatever]" has been bugging me all day.
If "lo tanxe" is the sumti, it is inherently quantified as "there exists
some thing-which-is-a-box", which isn't what we want, since it's more of a
hypothetical box. The kind of box I need may not even exist!
Maybe "I need a box" logically really means "I need to have the properties
of a box at my disposal" or something like that. That's quantifiable:
"There exist some properties X such that I need X at my disposal (in order
to pack up my socks or whatever)" Whether or not the box exists, the
platonic properties of boxes always exist in Plato-Space :-), so they always
exist.
So "mi nitce loka tanxe" would appear to work. Unfortunately I tend to read
that as "I want to be brown, square, and able to contain objects", i.e. I
want the properties of the box to pertain to my person. But in fact the
sentence doesn't actually say that, and maybe interpreting "ka" in this
broader way would solve the "any" problem.
Essentially we would be circumventing the ambiguity of wanting "any box" by
specifying precisely what specific (abstract) thing we DO want, which is the
property/ability of boxing things up.
Reading this over, I'm unsure whether I really want to claim "ka" is just
the right word; suppose there were a new abstractor with the same grammar
that filled this function -- I have no idea how you'd define it in English,
though.
But we shouldn't *require* nitce to take an abstraction because it's still
useful to be able to say "mi nitce lo tanxe" if it is in fact a specific box
you are referring to, rather than just a box in general.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Bogart
cbo...@quetzal.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Randall Holmes
how to e-mail the whole list; I'll try to do this in the cc: line at
the end of this message.
The same problem arises in TLI Loglan; the paradigmatic example which
caused a lot of discussion was "I am waiting for a taxi". The
difficulty seems to be that the logical form of the sentence is an
illusion; there is no box referred to in "I need a box", and there is
no taxi referred to in "I am waiting for a taxi" (there need not even
exist any boxes or taxis meeting your requirements for the statement
to be true). The context is "referentially opaque", in Quine's
terminology, and the object of the sentence, if it has one, is some
kind of "intensional" object (something on the order of a concept of a
box or taxi).
--Randall Holmes
("logician in residence", TLI)
Jorge Llambias
Let's call it {xe'e}. Then we'd have:
mi nitcu xe'e tanxe
I need a box.
xe'eti ka'e se pilno
Any of these will do.
rexe'eti ka'e se pilno
Any two of these will do.
mi na vecnu fo xe'eda
I won't sell at any price. (But I may sell at some price :)
do ka'e cuxna paxe'e selska poi xekri
You can choose any colour, as long as it is black.
la tenis a'upei doi xe'edo
Tennis, anyone?
Jorge
Jorge Llambias
> > Since it would be very simple to allow BAIs to work like that (they're
> > already allowed in forethought form, so why not in afterthought also?),
> > I don't see any reason not to.
>
> > At least {mau}, {me'a}, {du'i}, {li'e}, {pa'a}, {fa'e}, {ba'i} and
> > {do'e} can be given good use in this function.
i di'e la'edi'u pinka la i,n
> This appears to be off into hyperspace. I hope I'm misunderstanding you. :-)
Let me explain. The problem is that the subject shifted a bit from the
original question.
I wanted to say "I need the box or the bag (I don't care which)".
(I'm changing from "a" to "the" so as not to confuse with the other issue.
This time it's about a specific box and a specific bag.)
{mi nitcu le tanxe .a le dakli} is wrong, because if I need the box, but
not the bag, the sentence is true. In fact, I'm not claiming anything
about "I need the box" or "I need the bag" separately, so I can't use
logical connectives that by definition can be split into two sentences.
My proposed solution was to say {mi nitcu du'igi le tanxe gi le dakli},
and I wanted to be able to say the same thing using afterthought mode
instead of forethought: *{mi nitcu le tanxe du'ibo le dakli}
The other BAIs that I listed too can be useful as connectives.
Jorge