Re: mut
Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group
>vecu'u le notci po'u <01be8b8d$85f30b20$LocalHost@jorge> la "=?us-
>ascii?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" <jo...@intermedia.com.ar> cu cusku di'e
>>
>>This brings me to a recent comment by Colin about the meaning
>>of Michael's {pa lei karce}, which was intended to mean "one of
>>the cars" and Colin took it to mean "the one mass of cars". I tend
>>to prefer the first meaning because it is so much more useful and
>>cannot, as far as I can tell, cause any ambiguity.
But why was pa le karce not used? That would just as easily mean "one of
the cars", and there is NO known problems with it. Why introduce problems
by trying for a nonstandard interpretation of the mass descriptor?
>> I would tend to
>>interpret a quantifier of individuals (pa, re, ci, su'o, ro, so'i, etc) as
>>itself converting from mass to individual bypassing the need to
>>use {lu'a}. (Of course pisu'o, piro, piso'i, etc still work for masses.)
>>If that is acceptable, then in this case we could also say:
>>{e'u ro ma'a tugni}. Another example (used by several people) is
>>{coi ro do}, "Hello to each of you". If not interpreted like this, {ro}
>>is pretty meaningless there since there is only one "mass you".
"do" is indeterminate whether it is a mass or individuals, per Chap 6
section 13 of the book.
>I like this suggestion (which I hadn't thought of). But I'm not entirely
>sure it works in general.
I think that it plain does not work specifically for "lei". "lei broda"
need not be a massification of a plural set; it is a single mass, and the
components are of unknown cardinality. On the other hand, with "lei"
unlike "loi" there could be a plural number of masses. With 10 people, I
think you could have "mu lei re prenu".
lojbab
----
lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** loj...@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.
Colin Fine
ascii?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" <jo...@intermedia.com.ar> cu cusku di'e
>
>This brings me to a recent comment by Colin about the meaning
>of Michael's {pa lei karce}, which was intended to mean "one of
>the cars" and Colin took it to mean "the one mass of cars". I tend
>to prefer the first meaning because it is so much more useful and
>interpret a quantifier of individuals (pa, re, ci, su'o, ro, so'i, etc) as
>itself converting from mass to individual bypassing the need to
>use {lu'a}. (Of course pisu'o, piro, piso'i, etc still work for masses.)
>If that is acceptable, then in this case we could also say:
>{e'u ro ma'a tugni}. Another example (used by several people) is
>{coi ro do}, "Hello to each of you". If not interpreted like this, {ro}
>is pretty meaningless there since there is only one "mass you".
I like this suggestion (which I hadn't thought of). But I'm not entirely
sure it works in general. The problem is that (in the feature analysis I
am still toying with) I see +/-mass (kamgunma) as a feature of sumti and
terbri, which must then match for a sentence to be semantically well-
formed. I have no problem with an operator (some cmavo) explicitly
altering this feature - 'lei' explicitly sets +kamgunma, and "lu'a" (if
I've got the right one) sets -kamgunma. But your suggestion means that a
na'uvla may or may not change the feature, depending on its numerical
value, and I'm not happy with this.
I need to think about this further - it may depend simply on the
presence of 'pi', in which case we can in principle analyse the features
without having to determine the meaning; but I'm not sure.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Colin Fine 66 High Ash, Shipley, W Yorks. BD18 1NE, UK |
| Tel: 01274 592696/0976 635354 e-mail: co...@kindness.demon.co.uk |
| "Don't just do something! Stand there!" |
| - from 'Behold the Spirit' (workshop) |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jorge J. Llambías
>What has 'safe' to do with anything?
:) Sorry! I have to remember to use different arguments with
different peple. I do think masses are easier to use, but I also
think that they are in a sense more basic. My own goal is to make
the language as usable as possible without sacrificing any
of its precision. I certainly don't believe in fudging to make it
easier to use.
>You seem to mean 'people would find
>it easier', but that was not an argument that was given much weight in
>the discussion that led to "tu'a"; and my interest in Lojban is that we
>explore the intricacies that follow from parts of our design, rather
>than sweeping them under the carpet.
I'm with you all the way! That's what this discussion is about.
My objection to {tu'a} is that, as far as I can tell, it is not a fully
satisfactory solution to the issue it was supposed to solve,
not that there is no underlying issue to take into account.
>You're right, the book does. .ue.oi. I don't like this at all. I accept
>that there are going to be occasions when you want them massified (ko
>bevri le pipno), but I see individuals as more fundamental, and also
>believe that they will more often be useful. I would advocate "lu'oko
>bevri le pipno". Apparently I am advocating a change in the language.
The reason that I think masses are more fundamental is that, roughly
speaking, with masses one sentence refers to one situation, but
with many individuals one sentence refers to many situations.
lei ci nixli cu dunda lei cukta lei re nanla
The three girls gave the book(s) to the two boys.
That's one event being described.
le ci nixli cu dunda le mu cukta le re nanla
Each of the three girls gave each of the five books
to each of the two boys.
That's thirty events being described, with the five books
changing hands over and over again.
This is very general: sentences with distributive {le} describe
a whole array of parallel situations, and I don't think this is
the case with normal sentences in other languages.
The reason this is not as noticeable in general as one would
expect is that the most common use of {le} is for singular
descriptions, in which case this splitting of situations obviously
does not happen.
>>Aren't quantifiers very explicit? What more explicit than that can
>>you get?
>>
>No, because the grammatical operation depends crucially on the VALUE of
>the quantifier - not its form or the words it is made of. Remember "vei
>ny" is a perfectly good quantifier.
Yes, I remembered {vei} after I sent my reply. My excuse is that I think
MEX should be scrapped from the language anyway. I don't see in what
real situation this could come up, but I understand your objection.
One possible way to deal with that (I admit not a very elegant one)
is to make only PA numbers have this mass/unmass property, not
quantifiers in general.
>>Perhaps we should start another thread about this. Can you explain
>>what criterion was used to determine which places were passible
>>of sumti raising and which weren't? For example:
>
>No, I can't (at the moment). I've no doubt there is plenty of fudging
>and unexamined cases in the allocation of +kamsucta to terbridi. I am
>talking about the principle.
My argument is that we haven't dealt with the issue in a satisfying
manner. The places marked in the gismu list as specifically abstraction
only seem arbitrary. There are places marked explicitly as "object",
there are places that specifically allow both, and there are places
without any mark at all. And as far as I can tell there are no guidelines
to identify when sumti raising is a problem and when it is not. In my
experience, I often find myself using objects in places where I know
they are specifically forbidden because using tu'a would make the
sentence too confusing.
co'o mi'e xorxes
Jorge J. Llambías
>"do" is indeterminate whether it is a mass or individuals, per Chap 6
>section 13 of the book.
Then that solves it for personal pronouns. {coi ro do} is meaningful
and we can say {ro ma'a} for "each of us" without the need of {lu'a}.
>I think that it plain does not work specifically for "lei". "lei broda"
>need not be a massification of a plural set; it is a single mass, and the
>components are of unknown cardinality.
Plurality is not really a problem. Obviously if you said
{re lei broda} you would mean {re lei su'ore broda}, but this
is no different than {re le broda} meaning {re le su'ore broda}.
> On the other hand, with "lei"
>unlike "loi" there could be a plural number of masses. With 10 people, I
>think you could have "mu lei re prenu".
I think that with {lei} you should only have one mass, just as with loi,
but it doesn't matter much. As you say, you can always use {le} in
these cases. Where I do find it useful that the quantifier should
determine mass/individual is for the personal pronouns, and this
is already the case so I'm happy. I wonder what happens with
other pronouns... For example:
ko'a goi lei ci nanmu cu vecnu lo xirma mi lo rupnu be li cinono
The three men sold a horse to me for an amount of $300.
i mi pleji fi ro ko'a fe lo rupnu be li panono
I paid to each of them an amount of $100.
Is that correct? I need the mass in the first sentence because
without it I would be saying that I bought three horses, one from
each men, but I want to say that I bought one horse from the three
of them.
I need the individuals in the second sentence because I am paying
them $100 each, not $100 for them to split. Does {ro ko'a} do the
job I want there, or do I need {ro lu'a ko'a}? I think {ro ko'a} should
work, just like for personal pronouns.
John Cowan
> la lojbab cusku di'e
>
> >There having been a formal decision by the LLG board that "Lojban is
> >Loglan", the correct word for "loglandic" is of course "lojbo".
>
> That is the officially correct word, but I doubt people will
> use it that way, because it is too confusing (as well as provocative,
> which is the least we want to do in a context of rapprochement).
Indeed, I wrote a sentence to that effect ("Loglandic" = "lojbo")
but deleted it before posting for the reasons Jorge gives.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan co...@ccil.org
You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn.
You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn.
Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)
Robin Turner
> But then I have never approved of omitting 'lo' in 'ci prenu' .u'i
Me neither! I'm currently working on the "numbers" lesson, and don't even mention
this possibility. This is the opposite of my normal policy, which is to teach
elided versions first e.g.
mi klama le zdani le barja
rather than
.i mi cu klama le zdani ku le barja ku vau
which is confusing for anyone who doesn't think in HTML.
co'o mi'e robin.
Robin Turner
>
> There is no prim for "Loglandic" in Lojban, so we make a pseudo-complex
> with the LW "zei", which binds together the two surrounding words (only),
> producing a complex even if (as is the case) one of them is a name.
> The metaphor "me la loglan. prenu" would work too.
Thanks - I'd been wondering how to get round this!
Jorge J. Llambías
>There having been a formal decision by the LLG board that "Lojban is
>Loglan", the correct word for "loglandic" is of course "lojbo".
That is the officially correct word, but I doubt people will
use it that way, because it is too confusing (as well as provocative,
which is the least we want to do in a context of rapprochement).
I prefer to use loglo, which probably everyone will understand even
before it makes it into the dictionary. I'm not sure what the status
of five-letter fuhivla is, but I have already incorporated loglo, spero
and xorvo to my lexicon.
>We can
>make a lujvo from dzena-lojbo for the ancestral language culture, to which
>one can prefix mal- if one sees fit zo'o.
This sounds right (I mean dzena, not mal- :) but I would rather make
it jbodze: dzena be le lojbo.
>To refer to the other
>organization and its version of the language as distinct from our
>predecessors, the most accurate would be "me la TLIn prenu".
And how would you refer to a Lojbanist as distinct form a
generic Loglanist? "me la lojbangirz prenu"? I think I will stick
to lojbo and loglo.
Colin Fine
8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" <jo...@intermedia.com.ar> cu cusku di'e
>From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" <jo...@intermedia.com.ar>
>
>la kolin cusku di'e
>
>>to individuate it.
>
>I think it's a good thing that it be taken in general as a mass. Masses
>are much safer than distributive individuation when it comes to issues
>of scopes and such. For example:
>
> do dunda lo xrula la djan
What has 'safe' to do with anything? You seem to mean 'people would find
it easier', but that was not an argument that was given much weight in
the discussion that led to "tu'a"; and my interest in Lojban is that we
explore the intricacies that follow from parts of our design, rather
than sweeping them under the carpet.
>
>Does that mean "you (all) gave a flower to John"? Or does it mean
>"each of you gave a flower to John"? I think the first one. Or:
I think the second one.
>
> ko na dunda lo titla la djan
>
>Is that "Don't give sweets to John!", or is it "Don't everyone of you
>give sweets to John!", meaning that it's ok if only some of you do?
I don't understand what you mean. I read it as an instruction to 'each
of you' that you make it the case that (the same) you do not give sweets
to John.
>
>>I suggest that almost all uses of your terkancu to unmassify will be
>>followed by a 'lei' or 'loi', in which case the appropriate question is,
>>why has the utterer chosen to use a massifier and then immediately
>>counteracted it? Is there a difference between 're lei prenu' and 're le
>>prenu'?
>
>I was mostly thinking of pronouns. The book says that personal
>pronouns already work the way I suggest, so at least in that case
>I have the canon on my side. And no, I think there would be no
>difference between {re lei prenu} and {re le prenu}.
>
You're right, the book does. .ue.oi. I don't like this at all. I accept
that there are going to be occasions when you want them massified (ko
bevri le pipno), but I see individuals as more fundamental, and also
believe that they will more often be useful. I would advocate "lu'oko
bevri le pipno". Apparently I am advocating a change in the language.
>Come to think of it, there should be no difference either between
>{piro lei ci prenu} and {piro le ci prenu}. Not only are count numbers
>de-massifiers, but mass numbers are themselves massifiers.
I agree that if the implicit conversion is allowed, it should be allowed
both ways. I don't like the implicit conversion.
>
>>I would like to encourage precision (in the use of masses/individuals)
>>by requiring an explicit unmassifier (or fractional quantifier)
>
>Aren't quantifiers very explicit? What more explicit than that can
>you get?
>
No, because the grammatical operation depends crucially on the VALUE of
the quantifier - not its form or the words it is made of. Remember "vei
ny" is a perfectly good quantifier.
>>I see this as a similar kind of argument to the sumti raising question.
>>We realised that we were fudging an issue (in my terms, the feature
>>+/-kamsucta), and actually changed the language to allow precision, and
>>starting teaching people to use that precision.
>
>Perhaps we should start another thread about this. Can you explain
>what criterion was used to determine which places were passible
>of sumti raising and which weren't? For example:
No, I can't (at the moment). I've no doubt there is plenty of fudging
and unexamined cases in the allocation of +kamsucta to terbridi. I am
talking about the principle.
>
>(1) le vi ladru cu banzu le nu zmadu lo titnanba
> This milk is enough to make a cake.
>
>(2) le nu pilno le vi ladru cu banzu le nu zmadu lo titnanba
> Using this milk is enough to make a cake.
>
>(3) mi djica le vi ladru le nu zmadu lo titnanba
> I want this milk to make a cake.
>
>(4) mi djica le nu pilno le vi ladru kei le nu zmadu lo titnanba
> I want to use this milk to make a cake.
>
>If I understand the gi'uste, (3) is sumti raising and (4) is the correct
>way of saying it, but (1) is acceptable and I suppose so is (2), so
>there is no sumti raising there. Is that right? Is there any reason why
>that is so? And there are at least tens of such dubious cases.
>
>>I claim to have found a similar imprecision in the use of another of
>>Lojban's unique features, and have proposed (without changing the
>>language) a way of being precise. Your solution introduces an *implicit*
>>conversion which allows unwary speakers to fudge the issue again. It is
>>implicit because (I think) it will in general be necessary to evaluate
>>the quantifier in order to determine whether it is converting or not
>>(and what if the quantifier evaluates to .99999?).
>
>I don't think there can be any doubt about it. Individuating quantifiers
>are all the PAs that make sense as quantifiers except those that start
>with {pi} and eventually those with {fi'u} or {ce'i}. The PAs that don't
>make sense as quantifiers are those containing ka'o, pai, pi'e, te'o
>and maybe tu'o, although probably {tu'o} could be given some
>interesting use. But the two classes are very distinct.
>
No, for the reason I've given above.
>.99999 is obviously a mass quantifier.
>
>>You say it is more useful to interpret it your way - I disagree. It
>>would be more useful only in the sense that allowing 'mi gleki lemi
>>bersa' would be more useful: finding a way to assign a meaning to an
>>inherently imprecise construction simply to allow speakers the luxury of
>>not having to think about how they are using the language.
>
>I don't think I'm advocating lack of precision here. Could you give
>an example where there could be any doubt? The only things I can
>think of are things such as Lojbab proposed like {mu lei re prenu}
>meaning "five couples", but I think that is stretching even more
>the logic of masses.
You are advocating a lack of precision, in the same way as 'mi gleki le
zdani' is imprecise. It is not that the meaning is unclear (to us
natlang speakers - it might be to a Martian), but that the categories of
the language are being used in a way that does not match without a
hidden conversion.
>
>>But then I have never approved of omitting 'lo' in 'ci prenu' .u'i
>
>I didn't like it the first time I saw it either. I thought {ci prenu} should
>have been a selbri meaning "x1 are the three people", the same
>way numbers work as inner quantifiers.
I don't like it because it allows people (mu'u mi) to translate 'three
people' without realising that we mean 'three of all the people there
are'. It's a gloss over a unique feature of Lojban.
>
>co'o mi'e xorxes
>
>
>
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John Cowan
> Mi danza ia, supo lo logli ze lo lojbi fua kintaa. I muu fa suksi tio duo
> hu?
Okay, in Lojban that would be:
mi djica .ie su'o nu loi .loglan. zei prenu joi loi lojpre ta'e casnu
.i ma'a ba snada la'e di'u pu'e ma
All the words are different except "mi" and "i", but the grammar
is the same except for the following differences (in Loglan terminology)
1. Lojban doesn't have declensions, which were introduced into Loglan
after the split. (LLG comment: "Does one decline "godzi" when the
goer is male vs. female? If not, why not?"). Instead, we use the
obvious complexes: "lojpre" = "lojbo prenu" = "Lojbanic person",
expending one letter but saving on conceptual machinery.
There is no prim for "Loglandic" in Lojban, so we make a pseudo-complex
with the LW "zei", which binds together the two surrounding words (only),
producing a complex even if (as is the case) one of them is a name.
The metaphor "me la loglan. prenu" would work too.
2. I'm not sure why you didn't use the prim "dislu" (Lojban "casnu")
rather than a complex; the equivalent Lojban complex is "kanta'a".
3. There is no separate LW for the referents of just-spoken sentences.
Instead, we use the LW for the sentence itself, prefixed by "la'e"
("lae" in Loglan) to get the referent. This would work in Loglan
too.
4. There are several plausible translations for "duo" in Lojban:
I have chosen "by process" rather than "by method".
And if you don't like the apostrophes, it is possible to live without
them for the most part: they basically indicate which VV pairs are
two syllables and which are not. Lojban does use both "a'i" and "ai",
etc.; pronounce the apostrophe as "h" (which Lojban does not have).
> To which I'd say:
> Ea muo togri !!
> Let us (= speaker + audience + others, acting individually) agree !!!
That is "e'u lu'a ma'a tugni", where "lu'a" converts what follows
to individuals; "ma'a" is inherently a mass.
Loglan->Lojban terminology map: prim<->gismu, complex<->lujvo,
LW (little word)<->cmavo.
Colin Fine
On further thought, I don't like it. I think that your suggestion, while
probably workable, is unnecessary, and pandering to those that think
'lei' is plural.
I don't agree that 'do' is a mass: it seems to me much more reasonable
to individuate it.
I suggest that almost all uses of your terkancu to unmassify will be
followed by a 'lei' or 'loi', in which case the appropriate question is,
why has the utterer chosen to use a massifier and then immediately
counteracted it? Is there a difference between 're lei prenu' and 're le
prenu'?
I would like to encourage precision (in the use of masses/individuals)
by requiring an explicit unmassifier (or fractional quantifier)
I see this as a similar kind of argument to the sumti raising question.
We realised that we were fudging an issue (in my terms, the feature
+/-kamsucta), and actually changed the language to allow precision, and
starting teaching people to use that precision.
I claim to have found a similar imprecision in the use of another of
Lojban's unique features, and have proposed (without changing the
language) a way of being precise. Your solution introduces an *implicit*
conversion which allows unwary speakers to fudge the issue again. It is
implicit because (I think) it will in general be necessary to evaluate
the quantifier in order to determine whether it is converting or not
(and what if the quantifier evaluates to .99999?).
You say it is more useful to interpret it your way - I disagree. It
would be more useful only in the sense that allowing 'mi gleki lemi
bersa' would be more useful: finding a way to assign a meaning to an
inherently imprecise construction simply to allow speakers the luxury of
not having to think about how they are using the language.
But then I have never approved of omitting 'lo' in 'ci prenu' .u'i
Jorge J. Llambías
>"lojpre" = "lojbo prenu" = "Lojbanic person",
>expending one letter but saving on conceptual machinery.
It should be {jbopre}. loj- is a rafsi for {logji}. Also, there is nothing
wrong with using simply {le lojbo} / {lo lojbo}, "the lojbanic one",
when it is obvious that we are talking of a person. Just as {le klama},
{le tavla}, etc.
>2. I'm not sure why you didn't use the prim "dislu" (Lojban "casnu")
>rather than a complex; the equivalent Lojban complex is "kanta'a".
I think {ta'arsi'u} (or eventually {simta'a}) is a closer substitute
for {casnu}. I would interpret {kanta'a} as "talking to and in the
company of x2" an opposed to {fonta'a}, "talking on the phone",
{xa'arta'a}, "talking by letter", etc.
>3. There is no separate LW for the referents of just-spoken sentences.
>Instead, we use the LW for the sentence itself, prefixed by "la'e"
>("lae" in Loglan) to get the referent. This would work in Loglan
>too.
Can {di'u} stand for a subclause of the previous sentence, as
we want in this case (and in many other cases)? The previous
sentence was {mi djica le nu ...} and what we want to suceed
at is what comes after {le nu}, not at the wishing.
>> Let us (= speaker + audience + others, acting individually) agree !!!
>
>That is "e'u lu'a ma'a tugni", where "lu'a" converts what follows
>to individuals; "ma'a" is inherently a mass.
I think this is right, provided that the default quantifier for {lu'a}
is {ro} and not {su'o}. "Let each of us agree" and not "let at least
one of us agree".
This brings me to a recent comment by Colin about the meaning
of Michael's {pa lei karce}, which was intended to mean "one of
the cars" and Colin took it to mean "the one mass of cars". I tend
to prefer the first meaning because it is so much more useful and
cannot, as far as I can tell, cause any ambiguity. I would tend to
interpret a quantifier of individuals (pa, re, ci, su'o, ro, so'i, etc) as
itself converting from mass to individual bypassing the need to
use {lu'a}. (Of course pisu'o, piro, piso'i, etc still work for masses.)
If that is acceptable, then in this case we could also say:
{e'u ro ma'a tugni}. Another example (used by several people) is
{coi ro do}, "Hello to each of you". If not interpreted like this, {ro}
is pretty meaningless there since there is only one "mass you".
co'o mi'e xorxes
Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group
>From: Robin Turner <ro...@Bilkent.EDU.TR>
>
>John Cowan wrote:
>> There is no prim for "Loglandic" in Lojban, so we make a pseudo-complex
>> with the LW "zei", which binds together the two surrounding words (only),
>> producing a complex even if (as is the case) one of them is a name.
>> The metaphor "me la loglan. prenu" would work too.
>
There having been a formal decision by the LLG board that "Lojban is
Loglan", the correct word for "loglandic" is of course "lojbo". We can
make a lujvo from dzena-lojbo for the ancestral language culture, to which
one can prefix mal- if one sees fit zo'o. To refer to the other
organization and its version of the language as distinct from our
predecessors, the most accurate would be "me la TLIn prenu".
lojbab
Jorge J. Llambías
>I don't agree that 'do' is a mass: it seems to me much more reasonable
>to individuate it.
I think it's a good thing that it be taken in general as a mass. Masses
are much safer than distributive individuation when it comes to issues
of scopes and such. For example:
do dunda lo xrula la djan
Does that mean "you (all) gave a flower to John"? Or does it mean
"each of you gave a flower to John"? I think the first one. Or:
ko na dunda lo titla la djan
Is that "Don't give sweets to John!", or is it "Don't everyone of you
give sweets to John!", meaning that it's ok if only some of you do?
>I suggest that almost all uses of your terkancu to unmassify will be
>followed by a 'lei' or 'loi', in which case the appropriate question is,
>why has the utterer chosen to use a massifier and then immediately
>counteracted it? Is there a difference between 're lei prenu' and 're le
>prenu'?
I was mostly thinking of pronouns. The book says that personal
pronouns already work the way I suggest, so at least in that case
I have the canon on my side. And no, I think there would be no
difference between {re lei prenu} and {re le prenu}.
Come to think of it, there should be no difference either between
{piro lei ci prenu} and {piro le ci prenu}. Not only are count numbers
de-massifiers, but mass numbers are themselves massifiers.
>I would like to encourage precision (in the use of masses/individuals)
>by requiring an explicit unmassifier (or fractional quantifier)
Aren't quantifiers very explicit? What more explicit than that can
you get?
>I see this as a similar kind of argument to the sumti raising question.
>We realised that we were fudging an issue (in my terms, the feature
>+/-kamsucta), and actually changed the language to allow precision, and
>starting teaching people to use that precision.
Perhaps we should start another thread about this. Can you explain
what criterion was used to determine which places were passible
of sumti raising and which weren't? For example:
(1) le vi ladru cu banzu le nu zmadu lo titnanba
This milk is enough to make a cake.
(2) le nu pilno le vi ladru cu banzu le nu zmadu lo titnanba
Using this milk is enough to make a cake.
(3) mi djica le vi ladru le nu zmadu lo titnanba
I want this milk to make a cake.
(4) mi djica le nu pilno le vi ladru kei le nu zmadu lo titnanba
I want to use this milk to make a cake.
If I understand the gi'uste, (3) is sumti raising and (4) is the correct
way of saying it, but (1) is acceptable and I suppose so is (2), so
there is no sumti raising there. Is that right? Is there any reason why
that is so? And there are at least tens of such dubious cases.
>I claim to have found a similar imprecision in the use of another of
>Lojban's unique features, and have proposed (without changing the
>language) a way of being precise. Your solution introduces an *implicit*
>conversion which allows unwary speakers to fudge the issue again. It is
>implicit because (I think) it will in general be necessary to evaluate
>the quantifier in order to determine whether it is converting or not
>(and what if the quantifier evaluates to .99999?).
I don't think there can be any doubt about it. Individuating quantifiers
are all the PAs that make sense as quantifiers except those that start
with {pi} and eventually those with {fi'u} or {ce'i}. The PAs that don't
make sense as quantifiers are those containing ka'o, pai, pi'e, te'o
and maybe tu'o, although probably {tu'o} could be given some
interesting use. But the two classes are very distinct.
.99999 is obviously a mass quantifier.
>You say it is more useful to interpret it your way - I disagree. It
>would be more useful only in the sense that allowing 'mi gleki lemi
>bersa' would be more useful: finding a way to assign a meaning to an
>inherently imprecise construction simply to allow speakers the luxury of
>not having to think about how they are using the language.
I don't think I'm advocating lack of precision here. Could you give
an example where there could be any doubt? The only things I can
think of are things such as Lojbab proposed like {mu lei re prenu}
meaning "five couples", but I think that is stretching even more
the logic of masses.
>But then I have never approved of omitting 'lo' in 'ci prenu' .u'i
I didn't like it the first time I saw it either. I thought {ci prenu} should
have been a selbri meaning "x1 are the three people", the same
way numbers work as inner quantifiers.
co'o mi'e xorxes