Re: "any"
CJ FINE
> This makes it clear just how pleiomorphic and ambiguous this
> little word of English can be. I think if we ever get it
> working properly in lojban it will have to take many different
> forms. Just as the connective "and" did when lojbanized. I am
> still opposed to trying to capture all the English meaning and
> behavior of "any" in one word.
Absolutely. But is anybody trying to do so?
>
> Looking at the above analysis it appears that the meaning can be
> broken down into three elements.
> 1. exactly one apple is under discussion.
I'm not even convinced of this, but let it pass for the moment.
> 2. It is a typical apple. No outliers are under
> consideration.
Roughly, but I don't think you mean 'typical', which is after all an
idealisation. I suspect you mean 'ordinary' - 'fadni' in Lojban.
3. It is a randomly selected apple.
What has 'random' got to do with it? If I say I will eat any apple, you
may then with great care pick out an apple to give me - this is not
random, it is merely that I am explicitly forgoing any participation in
selecting the apple.
> 4. (2) and (3) are connected by the logical &.
>
> So we have one typical and random apple:
> In lojban this goes:
> pa lomci je cunso plise (or possibly):
> lo paboi lomci plise ije cunso plise?
I don't know what you mean by 'lomci' - it looks to me as if you have
tried to coin a brivla in back-formation from the rafsi 'lom'.
So building on your idea, I think it is something like
lo fadni je se cuxna be no mi be'o plise
which would function OK as a dictionary definition of 'any apple' in this
sense but is not terribly useful in everyday use. But maybe if we need to
express th8s precisely, this is how to do it.
Colin
ucleaar
> Looking at the above analysis it appears that the meaning can be
> broken down into three elements.
> 1. exactly one apple is under discussion.
> consideration.
>
> Would it parse? Are quantifiers proliferating to excess?
>
> XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E ...........I heard that laugh, jorge.
Xehe indeed. This is pretty much my understanding of what Jorge proposed
& I seconded, with the following differences:
(1) "one" is only a default, and any number can be specified. (As in
"any five books")
(2) 'Typicality' in the sense of 'average, unexceptional' can I think
be left to pragmatics. That is, "I am willing to eat xehe one
apple" *should* entail that I am willing to eat a rotten apple
shat on by a skunk, and the fact that this is not what I intend
you to infer can be left to normal processes of communication.
(3) It is not *randomly* selected but *arbitrarily* selected.
So, in summary, "xehe broda" would mean "PA (and only PA) things
arbitrarily selected from the set containing every broda".
-----
And
Gerald Koenig
1. one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind.
a. one or another taken at random
b. every--used to indicate one selected without restriction
2. one, some, or all indiscriminately of whatever quantity.
a. one or more
b. all
3. a unmeasured or unlimited in amount,number, or extent.
b. appreciably large or extended.
Previously I suggested that "any x" should translate to: (quantifier)
typical random (x). This post is an attempt to embody some of the
dictionary meanings above, and to deal with the multifarious problems
pointed out by John Clifford. I have as yet no idea what these
suggestions would mean for resolving the many scope ambiguities of
"any" in Englsh. Nor do I know if the grammar here explored would
work.
Predicate calculus quantifiers lojban comments
All (x) ro true quantifier
Some E(x) su'o true quantifier
Iota I(x) lo pa * the (one) x (term)
S_any Alpha(x) * l'alfa * singular "any"(term)
P_any Sigma(x) * s'ma * plural"any"quantifier
True quantifiers should have grammar of PA4. Terms should have grammar
of LA. Sigma(x) should have grammar of PA4. The stars indicate new
ideas for discussion. Pardon my ungrammatical new word spellings.
Examples:
ro da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
I eat all the apples. (They may or may not exist).
su'o da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
I eat some apples. (They exist).
lo pa da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
I eat the apple. (only one specific apple, it could be named Munchkin.)
l'alfa da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
I eat any apple. (only one random apple, it could be named Crunchkin)
l'sma da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja me cidja da
I eat any apples. (subject to the built-in restrictions on "any")
These are of course too stilted for practical use. But maybe the
following forms would work:
mi cidja ro lo plise
mi cidja su'o lo plise
mi cidja lo pa plise
mi cidja l'alfa lo plise
mi cidja l'sma lo plise
These are all meant to have the same meaning as the corresponding
examples above.
If there is any value in these ideas, they should be harmonized with the
ideas put forth by .And on the question of existence in quantifiers. I'm
not sure I dealt with "any" as "all" either but that's it for today.
djer
Gerald Koenig
Veion suggests that 'any', when not all in disguise, is a
discursive that means "no hidden conditions apply". His example, "I will
eat any apple," however, seems to fail on both counts.
First, the sentence as he uses it is pretty clearly not a
prediction, but an offer. As such, it sets up an intentional (so also
intensional and thus opaque) context. "Any' then functions as usual as a
context-leaping universal, the whole being approximately, "for all x, if
x is an apple, then I am willing that I eat x" -- "all" in disguise
again, but outside the opaque context and binding into it, so covering
real apples only (with no guarantee that here are any, as is usual with
'any').
Using the often illuminating dialog exposition of quantifiers,
this offer would amount to the speaker saying "You get to pick the apple
but I am willing to eat whatever you pick." But I, the hearer am pretty
clearly not unrestricted in my choice of apples. In the first place, I
only get one pick (well, certainly the speaker can withdraw his offer
after some number, he is not committed to eating -- or even to being
willing to eat -- every apple there is). This is a feature of the
intentional part, though, not of the 'any.' But, further, my choice is
restricted in very inexplicit ways: I surely cannot expect him to take
the apple the queen has prepared for Snow white nor the one Eve gave
Adam nor probably even those soft brown ones in the bottom of the
barrel. "Any' is, after all, just the preferred bearer of such
conditions as "within reason" (the usual formulation of the hidden
clause). To insist that the speaker has agreed to eat a manifestly yucky
apple is on a par to denying that all wild ducks in North America fly
South for the winter because pet ducks, crippled ducks and ducks in city
parks do not. The objections may be technically correct but
conversationally irrelevant and inappropriate -- moderately good logic
but abominable language.
Veion's idea is a good one, IF he can find a case. But IMHO
'any' ain't gonna provide any.
pc>|83
GK continues:
This makes it clear just how pleiomorphic and ambiguous this
little word of English can be. I think if we ever get it
working properly in lojban it will have to take many different
forms. Just as the connective "and" did when lojbanized. I am
still opposed to trying to capture all the English meaning and
behavior of "any" in one word.
Looking at the above analysis it appears that the meaning can be
broken down into three elements.
1. exactly one apple is under discussion.
2. It is a typical apple. No outliers are under
consideration.
3. It is a randomly selected apple.
4. (2) and (3) are connected by the logical &.
So we have one typical and random apple:
In lojban this goes:
pa lomci je cunso plise (or possibly):
lo paboi lomci plise ije cunso plise?
Maybe we need a word for precisely this. It could be a start on "any"
Would it parse? Are quantifiers proliferating to excess?
XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E ...........I heard that laugh, jorge.
djer
John E. Clifford
be where a truth-functional quantifier can meet an non-truth-functional
directive sentence: at the satisfaction set, the set of all the
situations (sentences, for convenience) any one of which being true
satisfies the directive (request in this case?). That set is roughly {x
is a card in the deck presented : "I pick x"}, that is , for ever x which
is a card in the deck presented (the "hidden condition" in this "any"),
if I pick x, I satisfy the request. This is a very different set from
the one for "Pick every card", which has only "I pick every card" or the
conjunction of the sentences "I pick ..." for each card in it. The "any"
set is, however, exactly the set for "Pick a card", "if there is a card
in the deck that I pick, then I satisfy the request". This is what logic
says should happen in this case (assuming that the same deck is used
inside and out of the intentional context).
That same satisfaction set plays a related role in the original
question , about "need" and "any" functions again to leap out of that
context to home ground. It does it as well in "I will eat any apple you
choose", if you remember that "will" here is intentional, offering to do
something, not "just" a tense marker, so it makes the offer before the
choice of apples but the offer is still only good for a limited number of
apples.
pc>|83
jo...@phyast.pitt.edu
> I,n asks where is the quantification in "Pick a card, any card."
[...]
> The "any"
> set is, however, exactly the set for "Pick a card", "if there is a card
> in the deck that I pick, then I satisfy the request".
[...]
> That same satisfaction set plays a related role in the original
> question , about "need" and "any" functions again to leap out of that
> context to home ground.
I agree, but the question is how to implement it in Lojban.
In the case of commands/directives/requests there is no problem, the
way things are defined,
(1) ko cuxna lo karda
means: "Make true the statement {do cuxna lo karda}". And the statement
will be made true for any card that is picked.
Sentence (1) does NOT mean "there exists at least one card such that
I am requesting that you pick it", and therefore we don't run into the
problem we have with "need".
(2) mi nitcu lo tanxe
on the other hand, DOES mean "there exists at least one box such that
I need it". This is how we want it to work for most predicates, but for
{nitcu} it gives us problems.
I am happy to solve this using {mi nitcu lo'e tanxe}, which roughly would
mean "the archetypal box is such that I need it", or "the relationship
{nitcu} holds between {mi} and the archetypal box". This is why I don't
like {lo'e} being defined as "typical", which in any case is a strange
article to have.
> It does it as well in "I will eat any apple you
> choose", if you remember that "will" here is intentional, offering to do
> something, not "just" a tense marker,
Yes, so {ba} is the wrong word to translate "I am willing to".
I would say
(3) ai mi citka pa plise noi do ba cuxna ke'a
I will to eat one apple, which will be chosen by you.
Here the problem is solved by {ai}, which supposedly wrecks havoc with
truth values. We can interpret it as "I am willing that (I eat an apple,
which you will choose)". Then the same effect is achieved of having
it inside an abstraction.
I think from the point of view of logic, "any" can be handled one way
or another, but we can't translate the emphatic "any": "anyone whatsoever",
because there isn't a word to emphasize.
Jorge
Jorge Llambias
> su'o da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
> I eat some apples. (They exist).
This is not what the Lojban sentence claims. In Lojban, you wrote:
"there is some x, such that if it is an apple, I eat it". This statement
is always true. It suffices to select some non-apple for da, and since
in that case {da plise} is false, the whole statement is true for at least
that da whether I eat it or not, and therefore the statement is true.
I eat some apples is
mi citka lo plise
I eat some apples
or equivalently:
su'o da poi plise zo'u mi citka da
For at least one x which is an apple, I eat it.
[Note: citka=eat, cidja=food]
> lo pa da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
> I eat the apple. (only one specific apple, it could be named Munchkin.)
Again the same problem. You are claiming that for the one thing, if it is
an apple then you eat it. You don't claim that it is an apple, so the
claim is again trivially true.
The normal way to say "I eat the apple" is {mi citka le pa plise}.
You can say {mi citka lo pa plise}, but then you really mean that only
one apple exists.
> l'alfa da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja mi cidja da
> I eat any apple. (only one random apple, it could be named Crunchkin)
>
> l'sma da zo'u tu'e da plise inaja me cidja da
> I eat any apples. (subject to the built-in restrictions on "any")
>
> These are of course too stilted for practical use.
And they have a different meaning than the one you want.
> But maybe the
> following forms would work:
>
> mi cidja ro lo plise
> mi cidja su'o lo plise
> mi cidja lo pa plise
> mi cidja l'alfa lo plise
> mi cidja l'sma lo plise
>
> These are all meant to have the same meaning as the corresponding
> examples above.
I think by "l'alfa" and "l'sma" you mean the same I wanted to get with
{pa xe'e} and {su'o xe'e}. I don't understand why you say that one should
be a quantifier and the other an article.
Jorge