Proposal: Generalized terbri Notation
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This is a nitpicky proposal concerning a general notational convention for labelling 'generalized terbri' in Lojban definition presentations.
Background/Current State
The definitions of gismu and zi'evla are typically presented as something similar to "x1 is/does [core idea of word] to x2 with x3". The number of 'xi's varies and the exact wording in English/relation between them may vary too. Each of these variables are really representative of terbri (although there is a large problem with conflation of terbri with sumti in discussions of such definitions) in the brivla. There are usually less than five terbri in gismu ("jutsi" is an example of a gismu with arbitrarily many terbri, though).
lujvo are presented in quite a similar fashion. Howver, sometimes, the symbols which label the terbri are presented as "ya = zb", where 'a' and 'b' are positive integers, "y" stands in for a brief string of letters which represents one veljvo (and may or may not be exactly "x") and "z" does likewise for another word; "ya" refers to the ath terbri of the veljvo represented by "y" and likewise for "zb" by exchange; the equality means that the sumti supplied to this terbri of the lujvo is also supplied to the indicated terbri of the indicated veljvo and, in fact, the latter terbri (plural) are always mutually aligned in referent. There may or may not be any mention of "x1" vel sim.
Connectives have no standard symbolic representation except possibly for a single character, such as "&" for possibly "joi" or "je".
Operators in mekso (officially, constituting and being constituted bybexactly selma'o VUhU, but other selma'o of mekso operators may be and have been experimentally proposed) denote the operator by culturally common notation (such as "+" for "su'i") with each operand (technically: 'operand conceptual-slot') being denoted by a lowercase letter in the Latin alphabet in standard alphabetic order starting with "a".
For the sake of this article, all of these 'parameter conceptual-slots' will be called "(generalized) terbri". They will be made more specific by context if necessary.
Let the number of generalized terbri that a word has be called its "arity".
Issues
No unified approach.
Cannot tell which terbribis first in lujvo.
Finitely many options.
Cultural reliance on order.
Symbols may conflict with standard cultural conventions for what they mean or how their referrents are denoted.
Main Proposal
brivla
mekso Operators
Issues with the Proposal
(Empty)
Generalizations/Going Further
(Empty)
Contributors
The following people contributed to this article. All ideas and opinions are theirs. All first-person personal pronouns refer to them.
- lai .krtisfranks.