tyt. tyt.

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!GREBYN.COM!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!lojbab>]

I ain't the expert on this, but Cowan just went to bed after our third
straight all-nighter.  (Enormous amounts of work done, but give me a day or
two to recover, and I'll talk more about it.)

My quick attempt to answer what I think went by as the "ty" question.  If I
answered the wrong question, ask again, and probably Cowan will answer and
do so more correctly.

"ty." by itself is a word which is in selma'o BY and represents the lerfu "t".
Grammtically, it can appear as a sumti, in which case it is a variable like
"ko'a", but most likely assigned to something that starts with the letter "t"
for easy mnemonics.
"ty." can also appear as an operand in a mekso, in which case it is a variable
or constant "t" representing a number.

When you use the number t in a mekso, you can express predicates relating
to this value in a variety of ways.

ty.moi  is 't'th in a sequence (don;t have place structure handy)
and
ty.mei  is a t-some
and a couple of others based on selma'o MOI
are selbri (the basis of bridi predications)

you can also use 't' as a number in
"ty. le vo prenu"   t of the 4 persons
and similar instances.

Regarding 't' in mekso, "li ty." is the number represented by t, and
"li ty. su'i pa" is the number "t+1".  This should be distinguished from the
string/expression (the mekso) that represents these numbers
"me'o ty." is a string representing the number represented by t, or "t" itself.
and me'o ty. su'i pa is the string representing the mekso "t+1".

Non-mathemeatically, but metalinguistically, "ty." is of course a WORD itself,
it is not the lerfu, which is 't'. "zo ty." then quotes the word "ty." and
is a way of reading of that very last quotation in Lojban.

The thing represented by "zo ty.", which is the symbol/lerfu "t." can be
accessed then by the indirect sumti cmavo "la'e" in LAhE, which acts like
a pointer variable and takes the referent of the sumti it marks (a
metalinguistic metonymy, as I think Nick would put it).
Thus "la'e zo ty." is that represented by the word "ty." or the lerfu "t".

The name "tyt." is legal, and is a plausible (but not the only possible)
name for the letter "t".

You can also make a predicate by "me la ty." x1 pertains to the lerfu "t"
in aspect x2  opps typo - that was "me la tyt.", or perhaps "me me'o ty."

t anyone?

----
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