Bridi math. Status?

[la gleki]

This article on bridi math was written in 2010. No news since then?

May be we should develop bridi math after all?

Here are my comments.

ni'ai

The nesting of be/bei/be'o gets a bit confusing after a while, and in some cases wastes syllables. For that reason, I've coined ni'ai as a member of NU to mean something like "x1 is the numerical result of calculation bridi under system / interpretation x2". Eimi (other name?) has pointed out that this is identical to an idea that he has had, which is "x1 is the result / value / truth of the first empty / marked place in bridi under system / interpretation x2" (my defintion). Basically, "le ni'ai brivla x2 x3 ..." == "le bridi be x2 bei x3 ...": it's a transform of le + be/bei/be'o into a NU structure without the be/bei/be'o.

...

So with ni'ai, we get structures like "sumji ny le ni'ai pilji li re li pai li xy" for "n + (2 * pi * x)".

Well, saving space is a nice goal. But I can suggest another option, namely extending rules a bit.

If we make {be}={be fe lo} and {bei}={bei lo} then the example would become even more compact.

sumji ny lo pilji be re bei pai bei xy" for "n + (2 * pi * x)".

Advantage: compact sentences, not for math only. No new experimental cmavo added.

Disadvantage: camxes won't parse that. We need to make {be, bei} more powerful.

To li Or Not To li

Grammatically, in something like "x = t + 2" it is perfectly legal to do either "li xy" for the first part or just "xy". In the first case, we are clearly talking about the variable x. In the second case, we are using the pro-sumti xy to stand in for the variable x. The second case is therefore somewhat ambiguous; many things start with "x". However, in mathematical texts confusion is unlikely to result, so it probably doesn't matter very much, just be aware of it. It sometimes saves some syllables, but not always (I prefer "sumji xy li ty" to "sumji xy boi ty", but that's a stylistic preference).

So as you can see my answer is "Not to li".

Other examples:

Math: "tan(pi/2) = infinity"

CLL: "li na'u tanjo te'u vei pai fe'i re ve'o du li ci'i"

Robin: "le tanjo be le se pilji be li pai bei li re du li ci'i"

gleki:   "lo tanjo be se pilji be pai bei re cu du ci'i"

English: "Length * Width * Depth = Volume"

CLL:"li ni'e ni clani te'u pi'i ni'e ni ganra te'u pi'i ni'e ni condi te'u du li ni'e ni canlu"

Robin:"le ni'ai pilji le ni clani kei le ni ganra kei le ni condi cu du le ni canlu"

gleki:  "lo pilji be ni clani kei bei ni ganra kei bei ni condi cu du lo ni canlu"

Math:"f(x) + 1"

Robin:"sumji li pa le me fy be xy" or "sumji li pa le ni'ai me fy li xy" or similar.

gleki:  "sumji li pa le me fy be xy" or "sumji li pa lo me fy be xy" or similar.

Unsolved issues:

Robin's {gi'ui} looks very much like gua\spi's solution. If I had more time I would definitely delve into this issue. Currently zo gi'ui mutce lo ka cizra.

[Jacob Errington]

There's an ambiguity in your system:

{.i lo broda be ci da} would be {.i lo broda be li ci da}, but what if we want to talk about quantified sumti inside the linkargs?

Seems like a major shortcoming. The only way that I can think of to eliminate articles is to do it like gua\spi, but there's no way at all that the entire lojban community will just shift to a tonal language.

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

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