Panpredicate pomposity?

[cbmvax!uunet!ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn]

Nick still catching up:

>From: jimc@math.ucla.edu
>Message-Id: <9106131551.AA02946@euphemia.math.ucla.edu>
>To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
>Subject: Re: expanding BAI form 
>In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 11 Jun 91 16:15:31 EDT."
>             <9106112015.AA02244@grackle.UUCP> 
>Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 08:51:54 +0100

[Bob Chassell had said:]
>> Perhaps we can do the same for members of selma'o BAI.

which is what I started to do in my last mail. The analysis is needed to
show why some omissions of {ne/pe} are nonsensical. Hands up all those who
treated {be'i} as a true sumtcita dangling in the sentence, instead of sticking
it next to the sent thing {lo se benji}. Mark, you're one of them %^)

Do you all understand me? The reason why you use {ne} with {mau} and {be'i}
and stuff is to kill ambiguity. I love you. Bob is the exceeder. Does this
mean more than I do Bob or more than Bob does? You can't solve this by posi-
tioning the {mau} next to its modificand, you've gotta explicitly link the
two with {ne/pe}. Same with {be'i}. I find gold with a metal detector,
{be'i la djan.}. What did john send - the gold, the detector, or me? be'i
needs a ne/pe link, and the kind of analysis bob attempted and failed at,
unaware of this feature, jimc applauds, I await, John will have to carry out
for his cmavo list, and even lojbab admits is latent (he  answered to Bob
that each sumtcita does introduce a new predication; all I'm doing is saying
we must know which predication it is to use them properly), is the subject of
a sentence whose predicate I've forgotten.

>Hear, hear for the pan-predicatist position!  
>(a) Pan-predicate definitions are easier for the users to learn.  

Well, more lojbanic, certainly.

>(b) Similarly for mechanicals, i.e. it's easier for computer programs
>	to handle pan-predicates than non-predicate special cases.

Who cares about computers, gentelemen (and if there's any women out there,
please say something already %^) 

>(c) Theory is easier in that there's only one deep structure you have
>	to theorize about.

Debatable, but I think the kinds of semantic transformations we'll have to
use paedagogically and to give lojban a lojbanic metalanguage will make this
inevitable.

>(d) A "predicate language" OUGHT to be filled with predicates.

Hehehe. Pull the other one %^)

>Disadvantages of pan-predicatism:
>(a) It's "traditional" for certain structures (especially <UI>) to not
>	be predicates.
>(b) It's "traditional" for predicates to be all tied up with "claims",
>	"veridical statements", etc, which are inappropriate for some
>	usages, especially <UI>.  As a parallel, consider the s-bridi of
>	a sumti, which is obviously a predicate relation but which makes 
>	no claim.
>(c) Without question, users will rebel if required to say everything as
>	a bridi with explicit words.  The pan-predicate interpretations
>	can only be deep structures, to which non-bridi surface structures
>	(such as diklujvo, <BAI> and <UI>) are transformed.  

jimc is edging closer and closer to understanding lojban %^) My felicitations,
sir.