coi xirma, doi xirma: Difference between revisions

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==  Proposed Definitions ==
From Jboske:


===  Proposed Definition of ''ke'a'' ===
CLL explicitly states that {coi xirma}, {doi xirma} are ambiguous between {coi/doi la xirma} and {coi/doi le xirma}. Since these two are nonequivalent, and since Lojban generally is not ambiguous (it claims that it is syntactically unambiguous but not semantically unambiguous, but in practise it strives to be semantically unambiguous and its claim is meant to be that it is not free from vagueness), should we see this is an error or brokenness in CLL?


;'''ke'a''' (KOhA7): Relativized it.  ''ke'a'' is a pro-sumti (meaning it takes the place of a fully-specified sumti).  ''ke'a'' is only used inside relative clauses, where it indicates the place in the relative clause's bridi that the speaker intends have apply to the sumti the relative clause is attached to.  ''ke'a'' can generally be represented by the English word "it".  In the case of nested relative clauses, ''ke'a'' or ''ke'a xi pa'' refers to the inner-most sumti to which the relative clause containing it is attached.  ''ke'a xi re'' refers to the next outer-most relative clause attached sumti, and so on for higher numbers.
It's really an issue about whether CLL should be allowed to subvert the underlying principles of the language, since one can disambiguate with {coi/doi la xirma} and {coi/doi le xirma}.


===  Examples of ''ke'a'' Usage ===
There is a further wrinkle, though, which is that I take {doi/coi le xirma} to mean "I hereby address/greet a certain horse". (It's a silly meaning, but not a silly construction: I might stand up before a class of students, wishing to address certain ones of them, and say {doi le tadni}.) CLL glosses {coi xirma} as "hello horse". But {coi la xirma} would be "Hello Horse", while "hello horse" would be "coi do noi ke'a xirma". So CLL seems inconsistent and hence 'broken' (assuming that consistency is necessary condition for nonbrokenness).


le stizu poi ke'a srana mi cu blanu
I therefore think that {coi/doi xirma} should be equivalent only to {coi/doi la xirma}, which also makes for a simpler rule: la/lai can be omitted following DOI/COI.


''The chair which it pertains to me is blue.''
--[[User:And Rosta|And Rosta]]


''My chair is blue.''
I've never thought about this much, but I agree on the basis of "coi djan" being at least semantically equivalent to coi la djan --[[jbocre: .greg.|greg.]]


sruri le botpi cnebo fa lo pelji tcita noi lei valsi li'o cu prina ke'a
So "doi pendo" is not "friend" ("you, person, who are my friend") but "Friend" ("you, whom I am giving the name 'Pendo'")? --[[jbocre: pne|pne]]


''All around the bottle necks where paper labels, which the words ... were printed on them.''
The argument is symmetry versus usefulness. As Philip just hinted, the useful default of ''doi'' is ''doi le''. I agree that it does have to be one and not the other, and vote for the less symmetrical but more useful ''doi le''. If you want a cmene, you know where to find them. I'm not even convinced all Lojbanists realise we can have names in Lojban which are bridi rather than morphological cmene (''cmeseltai''), and they certainly aren't prototypical cmene anyway. -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]]


mi troci co facki loi bitmu poi lakne fa lenu ke'a jai rinka lonu mi farlu
I agree about choosing the most useful, but the most useful interpretation of ''doi pendo'' is ''doi do noi pendo'', not ''doi le pendo''. In the case of ''doi le pendo'' the hearer first of all identifies the referent and then understands that the referent is being addressed. --[[User:And Rosta|And Rosta]]


''I'm trying to discover a wall which it is probable that it will cause me to fall.''
''*shrug*'' as long as you don't want the default to be ''doi la pendo'', we are not in real disagreement -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]]
 
===  Issues ===
 
[http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_thread/thread/13099a639265e843 on-clausal ?]
 
===  Proposed Definition of ''ma'' ===
 
;'''ma''' (KOhA7): Sumti question. ''ma'' is a pro-sumti (meaning it takes the place of a fully-specified sumti). ''ma'' is the sumti question marker, and represents, in many cases, any of the English words what, who, where, why, when, and how. Specifically, it turns the entire bridi into a question, and requests that the listener provide a sumti as an answer.  The sumti response fills the place where ''ma'' was in the original bridi and the resulting bridi is the answer offered to the question.  To indicate that there is no value that could make that bridi true, use ''no da''.  A more extreme rejection of the presuppositions or implicatures involved in a question is to reply with ''na'i''.  A bridi with more than one ''ma'' can be responded to with an unconnected string of sumti.
 
===  Examples of ''ma'' Usage ===
 
le verba vi ma pu cadzu le bisli
 
''The child near what walked on the ice?''
 
''Where on the ice did the child walk?''
 
facki fi ba'e ma
 
''Discovered about WHAT?''
 
mi ma ba lifri
 
''What will I experience?''
 
ta'i ma do cilre la lojban
 
''How are you learning Lojban?''
 
mu'i ma do tavla le si'o minji prenu
 
''Why are you talking about machine-persons?''
 
ma fo ma mrilu
 
''Who sent mail to who?'
 
do pu salci ca ma
 
''When did you celebrate?''
 
===  Proposed Definition of ''zi'o'' ===
 
;'''zi'o''' (KOhA7): Nonexistent argument place.  ''zi'o'' is gramatically a pro-sumti, meaning it fills a sumti place, but unlike other pro-sumti ''zi'o'' actually removes the place it fills from the bridi it is in entirely.  A bridi with ''zi'o'' in it actually represents a completely different relationship, one with one less element being related.
 
===  Examples of ''zi'o'' Usage ===
 
loi jmive cu se zbasu zi'o loi selci
 
''Living things are made of cells.''
 
The "maker" place of ''zbasu'' has been removed, so a maker is neither denied nor asserted.
 
lo pinsi be zi'o na se sarcu lo vimcu
 
''Pencils do not require a remover.''
 
Asserting that, regardless of how the pencil does its marking, the concept of pencil does not require there to be an eraser.
 
mi zbasu loi mudri zi'o
 
''I make some wood (regardless of starting components).''
 
===  Issues ===
 
[http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_thread/thread/f77e1bc13aac375b he meaning of -zil-] has had some confusion, and this ties in nicely to the current debate as to the meaning of ''ziltau''.<br />
 
[http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_thread/thread/d8375b977437395a  bit on what the CLL (doesn't say/)says regarding the matter.]<br />
 
[http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_thread/thread/2025351823b41f1d i'o with sumtcita]
 
===  Proposed Definition of ''zo'e'' ===
 
;'''zo'e''' (KOhA7): Unspecif it. ''zo'e'' is a pro-sumti (meaning it takes the place of a fully-specified sumti).  It represents an elliptical or unspecified value.  It has some value which is irrelevant or obvious in the current context.  All empty places in Lojban are implicitely filled with ''zo'e'', making it (by far) the most-used word in the language, in a sense.  ''zo'e'' can represent just about anything.  The important exceptions are ''no da'', which is equivalent to putting ''na'' in front of the selbri of the bridi in question and hence alters the meaning completely, ''zi'o'', which utterly changes the nature of the bridi to one which has a different place structure, and ''ma'', which turns a statement into a question.  ''zo'e'' can represent a referant of any complexity.  To fully specify the thing represented by ''zo'e'' may require very complex Lojban, including abstractions, relative clauses, relative sumtcita, and combinations thereof.
 
===  Examples of ''zo'e'' Usage ===
 
Note that, technically, every single bridi without every place filled in is a usage of ''zo'e''.
 
do tavla mi ta zo'e
 
''I talk to you about something unspecified.''
 
.e'o ko mi jungau le du'u .ei mi klama zo'e ti makau
 
''Please, tell me how I should get there from here?''
 
"there" is being used to gloss ''zo'e'' in this case.
 
ko bandu ledo skami zo'e
 
''Defend your computer from threats!''
 
===  Proposed Definition of ''zu'i'' ===
 
;'''zu'i''' (KOhA7): Typical it. ''zu'i'' is a pro-sumti (meaning it takes the place of a fully-specified sumti).  ''zu'i'' represents some value that is typical for the bridi place it fills.  It can represent sumti of any complexity, including abstractions, relative clauses, relative sumtcita, and combinations thereof, but whatever it represents must be typical for the bridi in question.  If the bridi relationship does not actually hold for any typical thing in the place filled by ''zu'i'', then the presence of ''zu'i'' in that place makes the bridi false.  Lojban constructions that ''zu'i'' explicitely cannot match include ''no da'', which is equivalent to putting ''na'' in front of the selbri of the bridi in question and hence alters the meaning completely, ''zi'o'', which utterly changes the nature of the bridi to one which has a different place structure, and ''ma'', which turns a statement into a question.  None of these can be typical place fillers in any case.
 
===  Examples of ''zu'i'' Usage ===
 
mi klama le bartu be le zdani le nenri be le zdani zu'i zu'i
 
''I go to the outside of the house from the inside of the house by the typical route and means.''
 
We can't know what the typical route is without knowing (at least) the layout of the house, but the last zu'i probably can't be anything other than ''lo nu cadzu'', which is "walking".
 
le du'u da srana de cu roroi mintu le du'u da ckini de zu'i
 
''X pertains to Y is always identical to X is related to Y with a typical type of relationship.''
 
This sentence is actually a meta-linguistic statement about the nature of two Lojban gismu, ''srana'' and ''ckini'', and as such loses essentially all meaning in translation.
 
bliku fi na'ebo zu'i
 
''A block with other than the typical number of sides.''
 
Presumably the typical value is six (a cube).
 
==  Notes ==
 
* I can't see formal definitions doing any good here.  Anyone disagree?
 
==  Impact ==
 
* None that I am aware of.
 
{MODULE(module=>BPFK_Poll'''Grammatical_Pro_sumti)}BPFK Poll: Grammatical Pro-sumti{MODULE}

Revision as of 16:45, 4 November 2013

From Jboske:

CLL explicitly states that {coi xirma}, {doi xirma} are ambiguous between {coi/doi la xirma} and {coi/doi le xirma}. Since these two are nonequivalent, and since Lojban generally is not ambiguous (it claims that it is syntactically unambiguous but not semantically unambiguous, but in practise it strives to be semantically unambiguous and its claim is meant to be that it is not free from vagueness), should we see this is an error or brokenness in CLL?

It's really an issue about whether CLL should be allowed to subvert the underlying principles of the language, since one can disambiguate with {coi/doi la xirma} and {coi/doi le xirma}.

There is a further wrinkle, though, which is that I take {doi/coi le xirma} to mean "I hereby address/greet a certain horse". (It's a silly meaning, but not a silly construction: I might stand up before a class of students, wishing to address certain ones of them, and say {doi le tadni}.) CLL glosses {coi xirma} as "hello horse". But {coi la xirma} would be "Hello Horse", while "hello horse" would be "coi do noi ke'a xirma". So CLL seems inconsistent and hence 'broken' (assuming that consistency is necessary condition for nonbrokenness).

I therefore think that {coi/doi xirma} should be equivalent only to {coi/doi la xirma}, which also makes for a simpler rule: la/lai can be omitted following DOI/COI.

--And Rosta

I've never thought about this much, but I agree on the basis of "coi djan" being at least semantically equivalent to coi la djan --greg.

So "doi pendo" is not "friend" ("you, person, who are my friend") but "Friend" ("you, whom I am giving the name 'Pendo'")? --pne

The argument is symmetry versus usefulness. As Philip just hinted, the useful default of doi is doi le. I agree that it does have to be one and not the other, and vote for the less symmetrical but more useful doi le. If you want a cmene, you know where to find them. I'm not even convinced all Lojbanists realise we can have names in Lojban which are bridi rather than morphological cmene (cmeseltai), and they certainly aren't prototypical cmene anyway. -- nitcion

I agree about choosing the most useful, but the most useful interpretation of doi pendo is doi do noi pendo, not doi le pendo. In the case of doi le pendo the hearer first of all identifies the referent and then understands that the referent is being addressed. --And Rosta

*shrug* as long as you don't want the default to be doi la pendo, we are not in real disagreement -- nitcion

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