Distribution problem

[CJ FINE <91909372@BRADFORD.AC.UK>]

First, some minor corrections on my previous posting.

1) As Iain spotted, I got seltanru and tertanru the wrong way round.

2) The point about selgadri, though correct, is irrelevant. The reason you
cannot expand a connection inside a selgadri to connected sumti is nothing
to do with jeks: it applies just as much with giheks:

        lo nixli gi'a nanla cu broda            (1)

is not expansibile to

        lo nixli .a lo nanla cu broda.          (2)

This is because the former is characterising one (possibly multiple)
object, while the second is characterising two independent ones. In
explicit terms, (1) is approximately

        su'oda poi nixli gi'a nanla zo'u da broda

while (2) is approximately

        so'ada poi nixli ku'o so'ade poi nanla ku'o zo'u da .a de broda

There happen to be some weak implications among pairs of statements of
this sort, ((2) implies (1) but not the reverse, for example) but these
depend both on the particular logical connectives and on the
quantification.
Thus selgadri are not particularly relevant to the issue.

3) My formal semantic account of kazytanru is slightly flawed, because it
is clear to me that the semantic domain of a tanru is not strictly a
restriction of that of the tertanru (got it right this time!)

Thus I am clear that
        labno prenu
is a reasonable tanru for 'werwolf' (also prenu labno), even though I deny
that
        lo labno prenu cu prenu

Thus, more accurately, I think that the semantic domain of, say, 'prenu'
is surrounded by a kind of penumbra of person-like things (lo prenu
simsa), and a tanru such as "labno prenu" identifies a restriction on this
larger set (which restriction may lie entirely outside the original set,
as in this case).  I strongly doubt that it is possible to characterise
this penumbra set either in general, or even for particular brivla: until
you think of "labno prenu" and the like, it might not occur to you that
such things lie close enough to "prenu" that a tanru fizo prenu could pick
them out.

I do not believe that any of these points affects my argument.

Concerning Iain's point about the similar problems of distributing out of
a connected selgadri and out of a seltanru: I suspect that they are a
different order of problem nonetheless. I have not thought about it in
detail, but I suspect that all the impliectaions among connected selgadri
and connected sumti can be mapped considering only the connectives
(logjonma'o?) and the quantification, whereas I am certain that in the
case of tanru, the kazytanru (nature of the tanru modification) is
significant. Short of dikyjvo (which I do not subscribe to) this will
always be the case.

I think there may well be a case for explicitly distributive jeks - as
somebody (Iain?) said, a sort of abbreviation

        cmalu ckule gi'e melbi ckule


(This is one interpretation of "cmalu je melbi ckule").  However, I'm
dubious, because again, the semantics of the kazytanru in the two cases
need not be the same).

In answer to And(?) about werwolf - I would claim that "labno prenu",
"prenu labno" and "labno joi prenu" (either way round) are all perfectly
good expressions (NB everybody - the last is not a tanru! Word
encompassing them all please?), the last being somewhat more precise than
the others.


                Colin