[lojban] Re: Is srana symmetrical?
Jorge Llamb�as
--- Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> In otherwords, is the following lojban statment true:
>
> le du'u da srana de cu roroi nibli le du'u de srana da
The tag {sera'a} is used much more frequently than plain
{ra'a}. That at least would seem to suggest that {srana} is
not symmetrical.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Robin Lee Powell
>
> --- Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> >
> > In otherwords, is the following lojban statment true:
> >
> > le du'u da srana de cu roroi nibli le du'u de srana da
>
> The tag {sera'a} is used much more frequently than plain {ra'a}.
> That at least would seem to suggest that {srana} is not
> symmetrical.
That is much more likely to be because the keyword for ra'a,
"pertained to by", is incredibly confusing.
I, for one, have no idea what it means, and have been avoiding ra'a
for that reason.
-Robin
--
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http://www.lojban.org/ *** .i cimo'o prali .ui
John Cowan
> Thus in English, relevance is not perfectly symmetric, though I
> would have trouble characterizing the asymmetry.
As Master Sorcerer Seamus O Lochlainn points out in the Randall Garrett
mystery _Too Many Magicians_, it's not relevant to a gun which bullets it
has fired, as the wear on a gun is primarily mechanical; but it is very
relevant to a bullet which gun fired it -- a point extremely important
to forensic ballistics whether thaumaturgical or not.
--
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the Candensian plane, which is very much like jco...@reutershealth.com
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Robin Lee Powell
In otherwords, is the following lojban statment true:
le du'u da srana de cu roroi nibli le du'u de srana da
-Robin
Jorge Llamb�as
--- Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 06:10:23PM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > The tag {sera'a} is used much more frequently than plain {ra'a}.
> > That at least would seem to suggest that {srana} is not
> > symmetrical.
>
> That is much more likely to be because the keyword for ra'a,
> "pertained to by", is incredibly confusing.
>
> I, for one, have no idea what it means, and have been avoiding ra'a
> for that reason.
I think the idea of {srana} is that it means "x1 is about x2". So for
example, if "this book is about birds" is true, that doesn't mean that
"birds are about this book" will be true, birds are not really
about books, so in this case birds pertain to the book and the book
is "pertained to by" birds, but not the other way around.
mi sanga sera'a le vi cukta
I sing about this book.
My singing is about this book.
mi sanga ra'a le vi cukta
I sing "pertained to by" this book.
This book is about my singing.
Bob LeChevalier
>Bob LeChevalier scripsit:
>
> > Thus in English, relevance is not perfectly symmetric, though I
> > would have trouble characterizing the asymmetry.
>
>As Master Sorcerer Seamus O Lochlainn points out in the Randall Garrett
>mystery _Too Many Magicians_, it's not relevant to a gun which bullets it
>has fired, as the wear on a gun is primarily mechanical; but it is very
>relevant to a bullet which gun fired it -- a point extremely important
>to forensic ballistics whether thaumaturgical or not.
I think that is "steci". The gun is steci to the (fired) bullet, from
which it can be determined that the bullet srana the gun (and vice versa).
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier
>On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 10:47:27AM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> >
> > --- Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> > > On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 06:10:23PM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > > > The tag {sera'a} is used much more frequently than plain
> > > > {ra'a}. That at least would seem to suggest that {srana} is
> > > > not symmetrical.
> > >
> > > That is much more likely to be because the keyword for ra'a,
> > > "pertained to by", is incredibly confusing.
> > >
> > > I, for one, have no idea what it means, and have been avoiding
> > > ra'a for that reason.
> >
> > I think the idea of {srana} is that it means "x1 is about x2".
>
>is relevant to x2".
That is correct. srana includes "relevant to"; it also can include "about",
but there is a place of pemci or prosa or cfika and other words that more
specifically give the "about subject" place
There is some intended parallelism between srana and steci with the latter
being more restricted (I'm not sure that steci necessarily means srana po'o
"pertains only to" but that is certainly one major sense in which it might
be understood). There is also a parallelism with ckini, which I think is
more clearly symmetric and with a specific defined relationship in x3 (the
symmetry of ckini is such that a is related to b if b is related to a, but
the x3 might have to be expressed differently if the x1 and x2 were
reversed). srana is less definite than ckini as to the nature of the
association between x1 and x2.
The reason for sera'a vs ra'a is probably English bias coupled with a
certain level of directionality in relevance. We might say that
information about the meaning of English "about" is relevant to/pertains to
(srana) the meaning of Lojban "srana". But we would be unlikely to say
that the meaning of Lojban "srana" pertains to the meaning of English
"about". Thus in English, relevance is not perfectly symmetric, though I
would have trouble characterizing the asymmetry. We left it unspecified
whether Lojban srana would necessarily have the same symmetry or lack of it.
> > mi sanga sera'a le vi cukta
> > I sing about this book.
> > My singing is about this book.
mi sanga lo pemci [selsanga] be le vi cukta
> > mi sanga ra'a le vi cukta
> > I sing "pertained to by" this book.
> > This book is about my singing.
>
>OK, that makes sense.
On the other hand,
do srana la lojban and
la lojban srana do
are both true for you (and probably most Lojbanists)
>Can you think of a better phrase than "pertained to by" that doesn't
>require re-arranging sentence order in the English translation?
"is associated with" would go with both ra'a and sera'a and ki'i and seki'i
and thus would not be distinguishing. Remember that LogFlash required
unique keywords, which is why the two would have to have different wordings
even if there is perfect symmetry. The keywords were NEVER intended to be
definitional for either gismu or cmavo - they were an artifact of the need
for unique tags in LogFlash. The two wording choices given in the cmavo
list make it clear to someone using LogFlash cued by the keyword which of
"ra'a" and "sera'a" is to be given in response, and that is all they were
supposed to accomplish.
lojbab
Jorge Llamb�as
--- Jorge Llamb�as <jjllamb...@yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
> --- John Cowan <co...@ccil.org> wrote:
> > As Master Sorcerer Seamus O Lochlainn points out in the Randall Garrett
> > mystery _Too Many Magicians_, it's not relevant to a gun which bullets it
> > has fired, as the wear on a gun is primarily mechanical; but it is very
> > relevant to a bullet which gun fired it -- a point extremely important
> > to forensic ballistics whether thaumaturgical or not.
>
>
> lo ka ce'u ba'o cecla makau cu na srana lo cecla iku'i
> lo ka makau ba'o cecla ce'u cu ja'asai srana lo se cecla
> "What it has fired is not relevant to a gun, but
> what has fired it is very relevant to a bullet."
On further thought, it should be {le mokau} instead of {makau},
because what matters or not is "which" rather than "what".
Jorge Llamb�as
--- Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 10:47:27AM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > I think the idea of {srana} is that it means "x1 is about x2".
>
> I think that might be the case, but I think it might also mean "x1
> is relevant to x2".
The other way around, I think: "x2 is relevant to x1". If
the book is about birds, then birds are relevant to the book.
> Can you think of a better phrase than "pertained to by" that doesn't
> require re-arranging sentence order in the English translation?
"being relevant to ..." sounds like a possibility. Also "as a concern
of ...", or "being a concern of ..."
Invent Yourself
> On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 06:10:23PM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> >
> > --- Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > In otherwords, is the following lojban statment true:
> > >
> > > le du'u da srana de cu roroi nibli le du'u de srana da
> >
> > The tag {sera'a} is used much more frequently than plain {ra'a}.
> > That at least would seem to suggest that {srana} is not
> > symmetrical.
>
> That is much more likely to be because the keyword for ra'a,
> "pertained to by", is incredibly confusing.
>
> I, for one, have no idea what it means, and have been avoiding ra'a
> for that reason.
mi da'i darlu ji'u tu'a zoi xy. pertain .xy .i ku'i la'e di'u nu darlu
ji'u tu'a le glico .iseni'ibo .ei cpedu fi la .bab.
--
DR. EDDIE: (defensive) They were performance pieces.
ANDERTON: You set your patients on fire!
DR. EDDIE: And put them out. Some not as quickly as others, but let's
change the subject, shall we?
Robin Lee Powell
> At 08:53 AM 11/25/03 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> >Bob LeChevalier scripsit:
> >
> > > Thus in English, relevance is not perfectly symmetric, though
> > > I would have trouble characterizing the asymmetry.
> >
> >As Master Sorcerer Seamus O Lochlainn points out in the Randall
> >Garrett mystery _Too Many Magicians_, it's not relevant to a gun
> >which bullets it has fired, as the wear on a gun is primarily
> >mechanical; but it is very relevant to a bullet which gun fired
> >it -- a point extremely important to forensic ballistics whether
> >thaumaturgical or not.
>
> I think that is "steci". The gun is steci to the (fired) bullet,
> from which it can be determined that the bullet srana the gun (and
> vice versa).
So you believe that srana is symmetric?
Robin Lee Powell
>
> > On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 06:10:23PM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > > The tag {sera'a} is used much more frequently than plain
> > > {ra'a}. That at least would seem to suggest that {srana} is
> > > not symmetrical.
> >
> > That is much more likely to be because the keyword for ra'a,
> > "pertained to by", is incredibly confusing.
> >
> > I, for one, have no idea what it means, and have been avoiding
> > ra'a for that reason.
>
> I think the idea of {srana} is that it means "x1 is about x2".
I think that might be the case, but I think it might also mean "x1
is relevant to x2".
> mi sanga sera'a le vi cukta
> I sing about this book.
> My singing is about this book.
>
> mi sanga ra'a le vi cukta
> I sing "pertained to by" this book.
> This book is about my singing.
OK, that makes sense.
Can you think of a better phrase than "pertained to by" that doesn't
require re-arranging sentence order in the English translation?
-Robin
Bob LeChevalier
>On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 06:51:57PM -0500, Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> > At 08:53 AM 11/25/03 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> > >Bob LeChevalier scripsit:
> > >
> > > > Thus in English, relevance is not perfectly symmetric, though
> > > > I would have trouble characterizing the asymmetry.
> > >
> > >As Master Sorcerer Seamus O Lochlainn points out in the Randall
> > >Garrett mystery _Too Many Magicians_, it's not relevant to a gun
> > >which bullets it has fired, as the wear on a gun is primarily
> > >mechanical; but it is very relevant to a bullet which gun fired
> > >it -- a point extremely important to forensic ballistics whether
> > >thaumaturgical or not.
> >
> > I think that is "steci". The gun is steci to the (fired) bullet,
> > from which it can be determined that the bullet srana the gun (and
> > vice versa).
>
>So you believe that srana is symmetric?
I think it is usually symmetric, but I would not want to make it a guarantee
lojbab
Jorge Llamb�as
> mystery _Too Many Magicians_, it's not relevant to a gun which bullets it
> has fired, as the wear on a gun is primarily mechanical; but it is very
> relevant to a bullet which gun fired it -- a point extremely important
> to forensic ballistics whether thaumaturgical or not.
How would we say that in Lojban?
lo ka ce'u ba'o cecla makau cu na srana lo cecla iku'i
lo ka makau ba'o cecla ce'u cu ja'asai srana lo se cecla
"What it has fired is not relevant to a gun, but
what has fired it is very relevant to a bullet."
And Rosta
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 10:47:27AM -0800, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > I sing "pertained to by" this book.
> > This book is about my singing.
>
> the bridi is the person singing.
>
> I am singing, which is relevant to this book.
>
> I think that works.
It doesn't work so well if you change the ex to "xu mi sanga
ra'a le vi cukta": !!"Am I singing, which is relevant to this
book?", !!"Am I singing (which is relevant to this book)?".
Maybe "I sing, as this book is about".
--And.
Robin Lee Powell
> I sing "pertained to by" this book.
> This book is about my singing.
Just for the record, the second translation is wrong. The core of
the bridi is the person singing.
I am singing, which is relevant to this book.
I think that works.
-Robin