Re: "any"
ucleaar
> 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"
This doesn't look like "no problem" to me. What if I want to say
"There is a card; pick it", or "Pick a card (& there is a card)"?
----
And
Chris Bogart
opaqueness comes up more often than I would have thought, and again and
again I've found myself wondering whether to use Jorge's xe'e, or a tanru,
or what to do, and I've ended up using "lo" because it "felt right", despite
my previous opinions on the matter (I more or less agreed with Jorge).
I've been avoiding diving into the any/opaque debate, because it's
complicated and I'm not sure I'm keeping up with it properly. Specifically,
I've forgotten some of the arguments that convinced me that allowing "lo" to
be opaque was a bad idea.
But anyway, here goes: as you may have noticed I just LOVE making little
tables to help me understand things:
T=transparent, O=opaque, V=veridicial, NV=non-veridical
Jorge's system Lojbab's system
-------------- ---------------
T/V lo broda da poi broda
T/NV le broda le broda
O/V xe'e lo broda OR (.ai/ko + lo) lo broda
O/NV xe'e le broda OR (.ai/ko + le) ??
I haven't heard yet if Lojbab agrees with Jorge about the opacity of ko,
.ai, and some other attitudinals, and I haven't actually seen Jorge use
"xe'e le" but I'm extrapolating.
Now that I lay it out this way, it doesn't look like there's that much
difference except for notation, although I'm sure I'm glossing over some
subtle effects on the overall interpretation of lojban bridi based on the
different understandings of "lo broda".
I guess I'm leaning towards Lojbab's system because 1) opaqueness crops up a
lot and so Lojbab's is more Zipfy, and 2) in my personal usage veridiciality
seems to correlate with opacity.
But how does Lojbab handle an opaque non-veridicial reference? Could such a
thing actually be useful?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Bogart
cbo...@quetzal.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
jo...@phyast.pitt.edu
> I've forgotten some of the arguments that convinced me that allowing "lo" to
> be opaque was a bad idea.
An example: mi klama lo zarci
Does it mean "There is at least one store such that I go to it" (transparent)
or "I go to a store (but there isn't any one store that has the property that
I am going to it)" (opaque) , something like "I go shopping".
> But anyway, here goes: as you may have noticed I just LOVE making little
> tables to help me understand things:
>
> T=transparent, O=opaque, V=veridicial, NV=non-veridical
>
> Jorge's system Lojbab's system
> -------------- ---------------
> T/V lo broda da poi broda
> T/NV le broda le broda
> O/V xe'e lo broda OR (.ai/ko + lo) lo broda
> O/NV xe'e le broda OR (.ai/ko + le) ??
That's not my system!!! :)
(I don't think non-veridicality is the defining property of {le}, so I will
switch to S=specific, NS=non-specific.)
Jorge's real system
-------------------
S le broda
NS/T lo broda
NS/O xe'e lo broda - lo'e broda
The dichotomy transparent/opaque can only occur in the non-specific case.
In the specific case, the quantifier is always {ro}, and I can't give any
interpretation to an opaque {ro}.
NOTE 1: {le} with any quantifier other than its default {ro} becomes
non-specific. {re le broda} means "two of the broda", but it is not
specified which two. {le re le broda} is specific again ("the two of the
broda") and its quantifier is of course {ro}.
NOTE 2: {lo} with quantifier {ro} becomes specific, at least for all
practical purposes, since a claim made about every possible broda leaves
no doubt about to which specific broda the claim applies.
[Also, I'm not sure, but I think the distinction Lojbab makes between
{da poi broda} and {lo broda} is not one of transparent vs. opaque but one
of existence-claimed vs. not existence-claimed. That would mean that the
quantifier of {lo broda} changes to something other than {su'o} when no
broda exists, but {lo broda} means the same as {da poi broda} when at
least one broda exists.]
> I haven't heard yet if Lojbab agrees with Jorge about the opacity of ko,
> .ai, and some other attitudinals,
I'd like to know, too.
> and I haven't actually seen Jorge use
> "xe'e le" but I'm extrapolating.
I would define {xe'e le} as {su'o xe'e le}, because as I said {ro xe'e}
makes no sense to me.
> I guess I'm leaning towards Lojbab's system because 1) opaqueness crops up a
> lot and so Lojbab's is more Zipfy,
So to say "I go to a store", you'd say {mi klama da poi zarci}? I don't think
making opaqueness the default is more Zipfy (but I don't think that's what
Lojbab proposes either).
> and 2) in my personal usage veridiciality
> seems to correlate with opacity.
Examples?
> But how does Lojbab handle an opaque non-veridicial reference? Could such a
> thing actually be useful?
If you mean opaque specific, I can't think of anything like that. Opaqueness
is either a subclass of non-specificity, or it is a third category by itself.
Jorge
jo...@phyast.pitt.edu
> >
> > I am requesting that you pick it"
>
> This doesn't look like "no problem" to me. What if I want to say
> "There is a card; pick it", or "Pick a card (& there is a card)"?
>
> ----
> And
You can do the same thing you are doing in English, paraphrase:
ko'a karda i ko cuxna ko'a
It is a card; pick it.
or
ko cuxna lo karda (to ije lo karda cu zasti toi)
Pick a card (& a card exists).
I say in this case there is no problem because the simple expression
{ko cuxna lo karda} already has the opaque meaning, due to the way
that {ko} is defined, and furthemore the opaque meaning is the one
we usually want for this type of sentence. If you mean something else,
you have to be more wordy.
I just realized that it is strange that we have a special word for
the "command mode", but not for other similar things like the
"intentional mode", or the "volitional mode", etc, which are handled
with UIs, but could equally well have been something like {ko}.
For example, say {xi'u} was the "intentional {mi}", then we'd have
xi'u klama lo zarci ~ ai mi klama lo zarci
just like
ko klama lo zarci ~ e'o do klama lo zarci
I don't see why the imperative is somehow more fundamental than the
intentional, volitional, and all the others.
It would be interesting to make a list of the attitudinals that change
the sentence to opaque mode, like {ai} and {e'o}.
This is assuming I'm right that {ai mi klama lo zarci} means
"I intend that there be a store such that I go to it" and not
"there is a store such that I intend to go to it".
Jorge