replacement for "ken"

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jan-ante
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replacement for "ken"

Post by jan-ante »

our new member tetA initiated a discussion about wile and its meaning as "want" and "must". the reason behind such a different meanings for single word is that "I must do this" means (in Sonja's oppinion) "somebody wants me to do this". finding this somebody could e.g. help to struggle depression. the concept is good, but it has a drawback: in Lewis system of modal logic, if the operator of possibility is , then the necessity operator can also be introduced and defined (though Lewis does not), in the usual way as ¬◊¬ (hope all the symbols are displayed properly). translating this into toki pona, one can notice, that
i must go to work => mi ken ala tawa ala tawa tomo pali mi
without finding the bad guy who wants me to do so.
how to correct this problem? e.g. one can remove ken and add a new word (say, jun), meaning "obstacle" or "to block/prevent somebody from something". then
i can go to work => mi tawa tomo pali la jun li ala
--/--/--/--/---/---/---/---/ala li jun e mi tawa ni: mi tawa tomo pali
i am allowed to go to work => ala li wile e ni: mi tawa ala tawa tomo pali mi
i must go to work => mi tawa ala tawa tomo pali la jun li lon
---/---/---/---/---/---/---/ X li jun mi tawa ni: mi tawa ala tawa tomo pali
---/---/---/---/---/---/--/ X li wile e ni: mi tawa tomo pali
if i can go to work, then i go => jun li ala la mi tawa tomo pali
may be she will come => ona li wile kama la jun li ala
may be she must go => jun li ala tawa ni: ona li tawa ala la jun (ante) li lon
---/---/---/---/---/---/---/ jun li ala tawa ni: X li wile e ni: ona li tawa
---/---/---/---/---/---/---/ ona li tawa ala la jun li lon la jun li ala tawa ni; this implies A la B la C = (A la B) la C

in the examples above the "bad guy" is named jun. the natural question then is jun ni li seme? figuring this out can probably help to fight the depression as well. additionally, jun could be used in a number of constructions like tomo jun - jail, jan jun - guardian, len jun - protective wear, mi ale li jun e kulupu utala ike tawa ma mi - we protected our land from hostile army, etc
janKipo
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by janKipo »

In the formula for the strong modal using the weak, you don't need the second 'tawa', the prepositional force of the verbal 'tawa' carries through the 'ala'.
'jun li ala' looks wrong, though it is merely the strange "the obstacle is nothing" (but then how can we call it "the obstacle", "an obstacle is nothing" doesn't get what one wants either, and the tp is not clear about the different). 'jun ala li lon' is the least ambiguous of the lot. This is, of course, the (my) standard reading "no strong force impedes", where the source of the force is as unassigned as it is for "a strong force impels" (wile).
My experience teaching logic (well, trying) suggests that the complexity of these paraphrases would render them unusable or, at least, difficult in viva voce, but technically they seem right.
A la B la C is flat out ambiguous in tp; it can be either (A la B) la C or A la (B la C) - (A & B) la C. So, putting such a construction in a definition would be dangerous (although I am not sure what the result of the wrong choice here would be).
Peirce does a modal logic somewhat along these lines, though I don't remember the details.
protect and obstacle aren't obvious (to me) the same broad notion. But then, the standard protect is 'selo', "skin".
janKipo
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by janKipo »

But the real 'ken' to go with the responsible 'wile' is "X gives permission for..." where X is someone with final authority of the matter at hand. But the dual of that is "X refuses to give permission for not ...", with X as specified before. We are now in the ant ethiverse where what is not explicitly permitted is forbidden, And, of course, if the restriction on X is built in , we get something different, so that has to be outside the definition somehow. Note that transitive 'ken' essentially means this, while modal 'ken' does not. Perhaps the responsible 'wile' is also the transitive form (which is that meaning all right).
janMato
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by janMato »

jan-ante wrote:how to correct this problem? e.g. one can remove ken and add a new word (say, jun), meaning "obstacle" or "to block/prevent somebody from something".
That is so strange that you suggest that and one of the last 3 potential new canonical jan Sonja words happens to be block/obstruct:

"block the way: pake e nasin"
http://en.tokipona.org/w/index.php?titl ... pake&go=Go
(however, if you click on the nasin page, you have to view the html source to see the word pake)

mi kepeken e nimi ni la pake li ala.

I guess in the long run, 0 word growth is unsustainable.
janKipo
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by janKipo »

But this is the short run. I haven't given any thought to how to say "block the way" without additions to the vocab, but feel fairly confident that something would turn up with a little effort. The temptation to solve problems by adding words is a strong one -- especially when there are so few, but to be resisted, especially by Sonja before she has really checked.
jan-ante
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote: 'jun li ala' looks wrong, though it is merely the strange "the obstacle is nothing"
i would say "obstacle equals zero". but if it is ambiguous for you, then the longer versoin could be better, although it is longer.
My experience teaching logic (well, trying) suggests that the complexity of these paraphrases would render them unusable or, at least, difficult in viva voce, but technically they seem right.
i remember. i tried this experiment in LJ of my former student. we asked a question like "what is ¬◊¬" and provided a set of possible answers without the correct one. 4 people replied, 2 of of them pointed out that there is no correct answer in list. so to me this result is quite good. and also note, that people still "have no obstacle to" use of wile to express "must"
Peirce does a modal logic somewhat along these lines, though I don't remember the details.
oh, these amerikan professors, they always remember something but never remember details. is this what you mean?:
http://www.hum.aau.dk/~poe/ARTIKLER/Gam ... raphs.html
or this one is better?:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jzeman/pe ... _philo.htm
protect and obstacle aren't obvious (to me) the same broad notion. But then, the standard protect is 'selo', "skin".
then how about jan seto, tomo selo, len selo?
I haven't given any thought to how to say "block the way" without additions to the vocab, but feel fairly confident that something would turn up with a little effort.
i would say pana e ala ken tawa tnasin ni, obstacle pana pi ala ken
Last edited by jan-ante on Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
jan-ante
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by jan-ante »

janMato wrote:
That is so strange that you suggest that and one of the last 3 potential new canonical jan Sonja words happens to be block/obstruct:
please note, that this my suggestion is secondary. the primary suggestion is to remove ken. i chose a monosyllabic word for "obstacle" as it is going to be used often as soon as ken get removed
janKipo
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by janKipo »

Guilty! But, in fact, what I was thinking of was Don D. Roberts The Existential Graphs of Charles S. Peirce (1973, The Hague, Mouton) and the dissertation of Tora Kay Lanto Bikson (University of Missouri, 1969 -- I think -- and now, to keep my record pure, I confess I have forgotten the title). I note that the blot version of modal logic is not in CSP, only the blot version of propositional logic. I don't think Kay added it, so maybe it was in Prior somewhere. Or I dreamed it?

I have trouble with 'selo' for protect as long as I think of it as "skin". Then I get clothes and buildings made of leather or so (and maybe a man who sells hides). Once I can focus on the broader meaning, then those all look good to me.

"give a possible nothing to this road" Again, I have to broaden my thinking. on 'ala' this time, to something like "prohibition, rejection, obstacle" and I am not sure I can get that far. But, on the other hand, it pretty clearly would do the job.

What is/was your academic line?
jan-ante
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote:Guilty! But, in fact, what I was thinking of was Don D. Roberts The Existential Graphs of Charles S. Peirce (1973, The Hague, Mouton)
well, it is avalable at google books, but not all the pages. but other sources say that under the dashed frame he meant some unary modal operator. it is not known which one but now the most people use ◊¬, while jun is rather ¬◊
"give a possible nothing to this road" Again, I have to broaden my thinking.
yes, why not? then, "give zero possibility to this way"
What is/was your academic line?
BS in physics, MS in biophysics, PhD in molecular biology. not really related to logic. btw the guys who were tested for ¬◊¬ in LJ of my former student were physisists who never studied modal logic
janKipo
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Re: replacement for "ken"

Post by janKipo »

My memory of Peirce -- mainly through Kay Bikson and Prior -- was that he wanted the logic of the now-unchangeable, i.e., in tense logic terms, past and present, and maybe really exceptional cases of future (but Armageddon might always intervene!). That seems a straightforward ~M~ for necessity, but I suppose there are other factors around that I haven't thought of (as, indeed, I haven't thought of any of this for a couple decades -- since modalizing Lojban, in fact). I should go look at Prior again. He also had a non-exclusive sense of probability, where Mp entailed M~p, as I recall (so, in syllogism he collapsed I and O).

I have trouble reading 'ala ken' as "0 possibility/probability", since that seems backward. But 'ken ala' alone is not right. However, in the sentence given, it would be in a noun place and force the desired reading.

Everybody has intuitions about logic and they are generally good enough to keep us from the big traps.
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