Re: essentials of a gadri system

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2003 14:41:56 +0100
> From: "And Rosta" <[email protected]>
> Subject: essentials of a gadri system
>
> As a contribution to the discussion, I thought I'd sketch
> what I think the essentials of a gadri system would be. I
> am ignoring both the current system, and the question of
> how to express these essentials verbally.

Accepted. For my part, I have put my contribution on wiki, at 
http://www.lojban.org/wiki/index.php/gadri%20report%2C%20aug%202003

These aren't essentials, of course, but essential additions. Still.

I am making comments on realisation, for which I hope you forgive me.

> 1. Kind. Requires specification of the property that
> defines the Kind (e.g. "is a snake", "is a pair of
> snakes", "is 75% of Oregonians", "is the stereotypical
> Greek Australian").

I suppose the last two are Kinds somehow, and I guess we can try and 
make sure they are sayable, but they still strike me as odd.

> 2. Collective of everything with property P. Requires
> specification of P. There could be an optional noi-statement
> (i.e. incidental: asserted (truth conditional) but non-defining)
> of the cardinality of the collective.
>
> 3. A specific Collective. Plus optional noi-statement (e.g.
> of cardinality or of the Superset the specific Collective
> belongs to). Plus optional voi-statement (i.e. unasserted
> (nontruthconditional) description (e.g. of cardinality or of
> the Superset the Collective belongs to).
>
> 4. Named Collective. The Collective is identified by name
> (cmene). Plus optional noi- and voi-statements (of cardinality
> and/or Superset).

I assume these are (if I can use for now my favoured LAhE-based 
solution) LAhE2 ro lo broda, LAhE2 ny lo broda, LAhE2 la broda). At any 
rate, something that the current language doesn't quite state, but that 
is encompassed in the semantic range of piroloi, pinyloi, lai, and will 
not require drastic change to the language to implement.

> 5. Is-a-Subkind-of. Binary predicate taking Kind as one argument.

This is not even a cmavo change (although it could be done with a cmavo 
predicate), and I have no objection to it.

> 6. Subset-of: "is n% of" (= "contains x out of every y members
> of"), where n can be left vague and have the meaning "is a subset
> of". Binary predicates taking 1-4 as one argument.

This can be either a tweak to ce'i, or a related MEI cmavo, possibly 
with two numeric arguments, probably not (fractions should do).

> 7. Each-member-of. -- Distributivizer. Applies to 1-4.

Either this is lu'i, or lu'i converts its referents a single 
invididual, whereupon we would likely use a different LAhE. (I'm sure 
there are alternatives within the baseline, but they will likely be 
cumbersome; e.g. ro lo pafi'uro loi...) We certainly need to settle 
which of the two alternatives lu'i means.

> 8. Existentially quantified variable (Collective). Plus optional
> noi/poi-statement of cardinality or Superset.

I don't understand. Is this da-as-collective as distinct from 
da-as-individual, or something else?

> I'm tempted to suggest how this could be lexicalized, but there
> doesn't seem much point in succumbing to this temptation, since
> the result would not bear any resemblance to the status quo.

I don't agree with either point, I'm afraid. Sorry. But with your 
permission (and even without :-) ), your desiderata enter my to-do list.

(*)(*)(*)
http://www.opoudjis.net DR NICK NICHOLAS; FRENCH & ITALIAN,
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE [email protected]
"Some of the English might say that the Irish orthography is very 
Irish.
Personally, I have a lot of respect for a people who can create 
something
so grotesque." -- Andrew Rosta