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- @Toaq.#general @2019-08-17
- [Ntsékees]
- "kảqgāı jí súq" is a clause, it has a verb and might contain one or more noun, and it can be a standalone sentence.
- Sentences can contain a single clause, or several clauses linked with conjunctions like "and" in English, and clauses can contain other clauses embedded in them, as in "I know that [you know that [I know]]"
- and "the man [which knows the woman [which knows……]]"
- [Christmas Bird!]
- Yea
- [Ntsékees]
- "I know that [you know that [I know]]" has nested noun clauses, that is, clauses that assume the role of nouns: "I know it" → "I know [that you know]".
- In Toaq, **lû** and the ^-tone play the role of making noun clauses
- a normal noun clause expresses a full proposition, which has a truth value, like "I am sleeping", "I see you", "I am a green cat"…
- those can be true or false
- [Christmas Bird!]
- Yea that makes sense
- [Ntsékees]
- One can also arguably say that propositions are the same thing as nullary predicates, i.e. predicates with no "open slot" (marked with ▯ in the dictionary)
- in English, "it is raining" is a nullary predicate
- at least it's rare to use "raining" with another subject that that dummy "it"
- properties and relations (predicates with more than one "open slot") are like clauses from which you'd have erased at least one part, to use it as a template in which you could latter plug anything you want
- for example, if I have the clause "I know it", you could erase the "it" and make it a fillable blank: ``I know ___``
- it becomes a template
- it's no longer a proposition, it has no truth value, it cannot be true or false, because it's incomplete as of now
- it would be able to be true or false only when completed by filling it with something
- ``I know ___`` is a *property*, or a unary predicate
- they can be useful when passed to *higher order predicates*, that is, predicates which take other predicates as arguments: it's as if they'd take incomplete templates of clauses as described above, and then the job of filling the blanks would be assumed by them instead of being your job
- for example,
- % tulī
- [nuogai BOT]
- 1–2/2 — tulī ± — common to, kampu / everything has property ▯ (among ▯)
- — tulī ± — everything has the property ▯ (among the things that have the property ▯).
- [Ntsékees]
- tulī = the property ▯ is universal
- ``tủlī nûo ja ráı`` = ``the property [___ sleeps] is universal, everything has it``
- the predicate **tulī** assumes the role of filling the blank in ``___ sleeps`` with everything in the universe
- which would be a very tedious task if you had to do it by yourself
- "John sleeps, the cat sleeps, the house sleeps, the sky sleeps……"
- So you pass an unfinished clause to **tulī**, and it assumes the role of filling in the unfinished parts (the "open slots")
- [Christmas Bird!]
- Oh okay
- I think I get it?
- [Ntsékees]
- A better example of the utility of higher-order predicates (predicates taking other predicates (i.e. templates) as arguments) is **cheo**
- % cheo
- [nuogai BOT]
- 1–3/85 — cheo ± — tu dó lủ mẻa hóa dóshī ceı tu lú mẻa hóa dóshī na ru hẻo hóa dó pa, gủjēo dógū da
- — cheo ± — = [XX2] Tu shí tảmēa dỏshī tu bú hỏı shǐ tảmēa dỏshī pa sa dỏgū.
- — ❦ cheo ± — predicate: ‘reciprocally’; ▯ are in reciprocal relationship ▯ with each other.
- [Ntsékees]
- which you are already acquitained with
- chẻo hó râqdēoq ja ráı ja ráı kátō = ``they are in the reciprocal relation [___ talks to ___ about the cat]``
- if hó refers to me, you and Hỏemāı, then you could say instead "I talk to you about the cat, you talk to me about the cat, I talk to Hỏemāı about the cat, Hỏemāı talks to me about the cat, you talk to Hỏemāı about the cat, Hỏemāı talks to you about the cat"
- but it's all long and tedious
- the common part in all those repetitive sentences is the template ``___ talks to ___ about the cat``
- so it's way easier to just take this template, a list of people (here **hó**) and appoint our faithful **cheo** to do the dirty work of filling in the template with all those people in our stead
- I hope this demonstrates why higher-order predicates are useful :)
- [Christmas Bird!]
- Yea, it does, thanks!
- [Hoemāı]
- Another way to think of properties (lambda stuff) is to think of them as infinitives
- "to talk" is abstract and doesn't have anything in the first place of "talk", it's the verb itself, without any subject or object supplied
- lî fả ja rảı = to go ("the property [___ goes]")
- where ``ja`` marks the place that is "removed" or "open"
- Imagine, for example, ``lî fả súq ja rảı``
- Here, the second place is "removed" or "open", so the infinitive means "to be gone to by you"
- or, "the property [you go to ___]"
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