History: Reduced logical form

Source of version: 5 (current)

sentence = selbri-2 [[[[FA] variable] ... /VAU/ | gek sentence gik sentence | NA KU ZOhU sentence | tag /KU/ ZOhU sentence | [[tag] [[quantifier] variable [[relative-clauses] ZOhU sentence variable = KOhA [[XI number] (da, de, di; ko'a, ko'e, ..., fo'u) selbri-2, gek, gik, tag, quantifier, relative-clauses, number as in the EBNF grammar The above grammar is a sub-grammar of the Lojban grammar. By that I mean that every sentence it generates is a valid sentence of the Lojban grammar. I contend that every Lojban sentence has a corresponding reduced logical form generated from this grammar. The idea is simple: to get the reduced logical form eliminate indicators and free modifiers, move quantifiers and negations to the prenex, expand all logical connectives to forethought sentence connectives and finally move all the arguments behind the selbri. The devil is, of course, in the details. I intend to work out an algorithm for producing the reduced logical form for any Lojban sentence. (In fact I think there are a couple of tricky places where it may not be doable, but at least this will show what they are.) The purpose of this exercise is to clarify the argument for the scope of NA. In the reduced logical form the relative scopes of the different operators are fairly obvious. mi'e ((xorxes)) !!Algorithm to reduce any Lojban text to its logical form as defined in the above grammar (Work in progress) ((Reduced logical form: Step 1| Step 1)): Reduce ''text'' to ''paragraphs'' ((Reduced logical form: Step 2| Step 2)): Reduce ''fragment'' to ''statement'' ((Reduced logical form: Step 3| Step 3)): Reduce ''statement'' to ''subsentence'' ((Reduced logical form: Step 4| Step 4)): Reduce ''paragraphs'' to ''subsentence'' ((Reduced logical form: Step 5| Step 5)): Reduce ''bridi-tail'' to ''bridi-tail-3'' ((Reduced logical form: Step 6| Step 6)): Reduce afterthought sumti and termset connectives to forethought, and quantified terms to KOhA1-form. ((Reduced logical form: Step 7| Step 7)): Reduce pre-selbri terms to KOhA ((Reduced logical form: Step 8| Step 8)): Reduce ''bridi-tail'' to ''selbri-6'' and KOhA. Obtain final form. This reduction does not handle: # Indicators and free modifiers # VUhO relative-clauses # tags when they double up with other connectives