BPFK Section: Pro-bridi

Proposed Definitions And Examples

bu'a, bu'e, bu'i (GOhA)

Proposed definition

These three variables represent selbri. They are the selbri analogue of {da}, allowing existential and universal claims to be made about predicates.

Keywords

• logically quantified predicate variable
• some selbri

Examples

doi .eimis. pe'i ro bu'a zo'u lo prenu cu ka'e jai bu'a

Amy, my opinion is that for any state/action/property/thing X, (some) people are capable of being/doing/having something to do with X.

ganai do djica lonu bu'a gi gauko bu'a

If there is something you want to happen, make it happen.

zo poi bu'a zo noi .ije zo voi bu'a ma

What is to “voi” as “noi” is to “poi”?

xu ro bu'a ro bu'e zo'u ganai bu'a seni'i bu'e gi ge bu'a gi bu'e

For every P and Q if P implies Q then P AND Q

can someone check this?

xu ro nu bu'a cu du'u bu'e

Is every event a predication?

ro bu'a su'o bu'e su'o bu'i zo'u ge bu'a gi'a bu'e gi'a bu'i gi co'e

For every P, Some Q and Some R: both P or Q or R; and something unspecified.

For any proposition, there is at least two propositions such that both what we were talking about earlier and at least one of the propositions is true.

This translation needs checked; unsure about the logical connectives here.

• I think the translator got confused by the contrast between Lojban-prefix and English-infix. It's "P and (Q or (R or something]". The first operator has the highest scope. That said, I believe the translation should be something like this: For any proposition, there exists at least one proposition such that there exists at least one proposition such that the first proposition is true and one of the second two propositions or what we were talking about earlier is true. --mi'e zort

co'e (GOhA)

Proposed Definition

This represents an unspecified selbri, that is a selbri whose exact meaning is unimportant/obvious.

Keywords

• Unspecified selbri

Examples

i ko na co'e sei le nolraitru cu cusku

“Don't,” said the king.

le so'u kurji be le bangu co'e pe la tolkien cu se xebni le drata sarji be le bi'unai bangu

The few custodians of Tolkien's language stuff were despised by the other supporters of that language.

nabmi mi lenu co'e la emaks

I have problems with Emacs.

ju'i clsn ko co'e

Shoulson! Do it.

du (GOhA)

Definition

This is the equality predicate. x1 equals x2, x3, etc. It is used for mathematics and also to say that multiple different sumti actually refer to the same thing.

Keywords

• equal

Examples

ko'a du lo mlatu

It (ko'a) is the cat.

mi du re plise

I am two apples (selckiku on IRC - 26 Apr 2010 15:37:49)

zo ta'a cu na du lo sumti tcita pe zo tavla

"ta'a" is not the sumti tcita of "tavla" (lazni on IRC - 31 Mar 2010 02:29:40)

doi norsmu li zepamu pi'i rexamu du li xo

Norsmu, what is 715 × 265?

go'a, go'e, go'i, go'o, go'u (GOhA)

Definition

These are pro-bridi, repeating other bridi referred to by when they occurred.

go'a - Repeats a recent bridi, usually not either of the previous two.

go'e - Repeats the penultimate (next to last) bridi.

go'i - Repeats the previous bridi. When used in answer to a yes/no question, it repeats the claim, meaning yes.

go'o - Repeats a future bridi, normally the next one.

go'u - Repeats an earlier bridi, normal from quite a while ago.

Keywords

• go'a - recent bridi
• go'e - penultimate bridi

• go'i - previous bridi
• go'i - yes

• go'o - future bridi
• go'u - earlier bridi

Examples of go'a Usage

~60~xorxes> xu ro cmene be lo gugde ba se vasru la jbovlaste

~60~Broca> mi troci tu'a lo glico pavbauvlacku

~60~Broca> a'o go'a

~60~xorxes> Will all names of countries be in Jbovlaste?

~60~Broca> I try with an English monolingual dictionary.

~60~Broca> Hopefully all names of countries will be in Jbovlaste.

Examples of go'e Usage

na go'e doi tomoj .i mi damba la lindar

No, Tomoj. I'm fighting with Lindar.

Examples of go'i Usage

.y. mi na go'i .i ku'i ru'a lo samtci na ka'e djica

Uh, I don't. But I presume that a computer program isn't able to want.

~60~djancak> mi nelci lo nu tavla bau la lojban

~60~gunspoja> go'i ra'o

I like talking in Lojban.

Me too.

Examples of go'o Usage

xu do go'o .i mi tavla fo la .lojban.

Do you? I talk in Lojban.

Examples of go'u Usage

mi djuno lo nu do ka'e go'u

I know you're capable of doing that thing somebody said a while ago.

mo (GOhA)

Definition

This pro-bridi is the question marker for selbri. It asks for a selbri to fill in its spot.

Keywords

• selbri question

Examples

lo su'u do mo cu cinri mi

What are you doing that is interesting to me?

do mo prenu

What kind of person are you?

nago'i (GOhA*)

Definition

This pro-bridi repeats the last bridi (like {go'i}) while denying it as false. The referent of sumti inherited from the previous bridi are unchanged.

Keywords

• NOT previous bridi
• no

Examples

.i doi .cmen. do plise vau xu

.i .oi na go'i

Cmen, are you an apple?

Argh, no.

xu do merko

na go'i

mi dotco

Are you American?

No.

I'm German.

nei (GOhA)

Definition

This pro-bridi repeats the current bridi. It allows a bridi to be self referential.

Keywords

• this bridi

Examples

du'o nai lo mamta be do mi gletu lo jai du'o nai nei

Unbeknownst to your mother, I had sex with someone who was unaware of it.

ko geirgau le tadni poi na nei ke'a

Make those students whom you have not made happy, happy.

Issues

• a nei ?

no'a (GOhA)

Definition

This pro-bridi repeats the next outer bridi, the bridi which this bridi is embedded within.

Keywords

• outer bridi

Examples

mi gleki lo nu no'a

I'm happy about being happy.

le la turnianskis selru'a be fi la lojban zo'u la lojban kulnu nutli gi'e satci fi'o nafmupli fe'u lo nu ly na no'a

Turniansky's postulate about Lojban: Lojban is culturally neutral and exact, with the exception that Lojban isn't.

Notes

What the second sentence in {mi prami do .i se go'i} mean? Do we even know? - rlpowell - May 2012 -- Actually, standard use of {le se go'i} forces it to be just a repeat of the first sentence, so nevermind. - rlpowell

Can bu'a be "na klama"? That makes things pretty fucking weird; {ro bu'a ro da ro de zo'u da bu'a de .i jo nai da na bu'a de} is not actually true, because "da na klama de" and "da na na klama de" are both true. Do note, however, that {da ja'a bu'a de .i jo nai da na bu'a de} fixes it.

No, of course not. "na" is only syntactically part of the selbri; semantically it applies to the whole bridi. --John Cowan

But what happens when bu'a == narbroda? --latros

narbroda is a positive selbri: it is true of exactly those tuples that broda is false of. But in any case, the original claim is bogus: "ro da ro de zo'u da na klama de" is true, because it means "naku ro da ro de zo'u da klama de" (it's true that it is not the case that for every x and every y, x goes to y") and "ro da ro de zo'u da na na klama de" is false, because it means "naku naku ro da ro de zo'u da klama de" which in turn means "ro da ro de klama de", and it is not true that every x goes to every y). So the claim of "pretty fucking weird" seems to me to be incorrect. Multiple consecutive {na} in the selbri cancels out; it's only when you say {na go'i} to a bridi containing {na} that the two are assimilated into just one. This is a magic property of go'V cmavo. --John Cowan

There is an issue with bu'a, which also extends to selbri in general to a lesser extent. It is essentially not possible to treat selbri as sumti; that is, to consider a predicate as a predicate logic variable. This is especially relevant to bu'a, because we might want to assert the existence of a predicate which satisfies a certain predicate and is also the selbri of a bridi involving certain terbri. An example when this would be warranted is here. The English sentence "For all stratified predicates P, the set {x : P(x)} exists" ostensibly cannot be translated in the same style; that is, it is apparently not possible to assert that a predicate satisfies a relation in the prenex and then use it as the selbri of a bridi. You can say {ro da poi ke'a selbri gi'e ... zo'u}, and you can say {ro bu'a zo'u}, but you cannot do something that does both things.

• rlpowell's proposed solution appears to be to import {da poi ke'a selbri} from the prenex and then treat that as bu'a, leading to {ro da poi ke'a selbri gi'e multersenta zo'u lo'i bu'a cu zasti}. This seems a bit..."destructive", to me (mi'e latros), since now I am fairly sure that something is horribly wrong with {da bu'a}.
• My proposed solution is to introduce sumti-to-predicate and predicate-to-sumti cmavo. It may sound like both of these exist, but I am fairly sure they do not. Using, say {me'au}, {me'au ko'a} would be "x1 ko'a x2 x3 ..." where ko'a is a predicate. Then using, say, {me'ei}, {me'ei broda} would be "broda-as-an-abstract-predicate". Then when quantifying over selbri in prenexes, you would use {ro me'ei bu'a}. The previous example then becomes: {ro me'ei bu'a poi ke'a multersenta zo'u lo'i bu'a cu zasti}. This removes the horrible selbri quantification hack, in that {ro bu'a zo'u} would be essentially no different from {ro da zo'u}, except that it would import {lo bu'a} instead of {da}. (It replaces it with another hack, but I would say this one is less bizarre.) In principle {me'ei broda} could be "x1 is broda-as-an-abstract-predicate", but I can't think of how this would ever be used beyond {lo me'ei broda}.

{bu'a} is treated weirdly: it's a selbri normally, but in the prenex it is effectively a sumti. The reason this works is that although {ro bu'a} is syntactically a quantifier+sumti-tail type of description, it is taken to mean "for all P". --John Cowan