Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate
John Cowan
> Furthermore, though the word order leads to different likely interpretation
> it doesn't change the possible meanings.
> ro da prami de
> Can mean "Everyone loves >=one other (the same) person" just as much as it
> can mean "Everyone loves someone (else)".
In fact it means neither: it means "Everyone loves some person(s), possibly
different person(s) for each or even themselves." When sumti appear in a
bridi with no prenex, their scope is uniformly left-to-right.
Unless you mean that the Lojban statement is entailed by either English
sentence, which is certainly true.
> I was discussing this point with some people on IRC a while back, and
> bunk I say! bunk! Of course unicorns exist: they're concepts.
Not at all. The concept of a unicorn is a concept, and it exists, just
as the concept of a horse exists. Otherwise we are in the position of
saying that horses are animals, but unicorns are concepts, which is very ugly.
> I say {mi djica lenu lo pavyseljirna cu klama ti} there's nothing wrong
> with the bridi, as I really do desire that su'o lo ro pavyseljirna
> come (even if ro = 0; the su'o is just the number I'm wanting).
There *is* nothing wrong, because nu-events exist even if the things inside
don't. But lo pavyseljirna cu blabi, "some unicorn is white", that's
rubbish.
> Additionally, certainly you can dream a unicorn klama do, as unicorns
> *do* exist in dreams. With:
> da poi pavyseljirna zo'u mi senva ledu'u da klama mi
> says "there is a unicorn such that I dreamt it came to me".
That claim is false. A true claim would be:
mi senva ledu'u lo pavyseljirna da klama mi
which puts the unicorn firmly inside the context of a proposition.
(Here comes Bernard J. Ortcutt, pillar of the community and possible spy.)
--
John Cowan jco...@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com
"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
on my shoulders."
--Hal Abelson
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And Rosta
aro...@uclan.ac.uk writes:
#<<
#> I
#> think I understand how Jorge's {lo'e} is supposed to work, but
#> I'm not yet convinced that {lo'e} is the right solution to generalize
#> over all examples that have popped up in discussion.
#Do tell us. The worst that is likely to happen is that xorxes says (as he
#does with all my tries) that that is not it at all. He may even try to
#explain why not (anything is possible).
#I agree that some of the cases that muddy the water are probably wrongly
#included, but I have trouble -- since I can't get a straight answer on what
#any of them mean -- which ones (but I am pretty sure about {pixra lo'e
#sincrboa}).
I would rather wait to get a canonical corpus of exx from Jorge.
#<<
##I suppose you mean {se li'i}, "I'm a visual experiencer of
##something being a boa".
##>>
##No, I meant {li'i} though I left out the {le} . Apparently the meaning has
##changed since the word was created by someone who lived primarily in a
##disembodied experiental mode.
#It hasn't changed its meaning AFAIK. It's just that "viska lo li'i" means
#"see an experience", not "have an experience of seeing". That doesn't
#mean there's no way to say "have the experience of seeing", though.
#>>
#I am not sure about {viska lo li'i ...} meaning "has a visual experience of",
#but I think that is about right.
Since "viska ko'a" means "see ko'a", "viska lo li'i" should mean "see an
experience" (which is not the same thing as "has a visual experience").
#The word {li'i} was devised by a paraplegic
#(as far as I can remember, anyhow) who experience many events but could
#participate in none. The term was devised to allow him to express his view
#of the world -- and also be an aid in dealing withm delusional states and
#illusory presentations (the Indian chestnut about the snake and the rope got
#translated rather nicely using it, I recall.) Of course, this was in Loglan,
#but {li'i} was taken over -- at least originally -- directly and explicitly.
All of this is true (though the story I was told involved an amputee, iirc).
However, as implemented in Lojban, "I experience having a leg" is
{da li'i de tuple mi/?ce'u kei mi}. I personally think
mi lifri lo ka'e nu da tuple mi
mi lifri lo su'o mu'ei nu da tuple mi
mi lifri lo ka'e tuple be mi
mi lifri lo su'o mu'ei tuple be mi
would all work too. For "hava a visual experience of a unicorn", I'd say:
mi viska zei lifri lo ka'e pavyseljirna
mi viska zei lifri lo su'o mu'ei pavyseljirna
#<<
#IMO, the Lojban technical term "abstraction" is primarily grammatical
#rather than semantic -- an event is indeed no more abstract than
#a participant in an event. So really "abstraction" just means "selmaho
#NU". {tu'a ko'a} is therefore an abbreviation for {le su'u ko'a co'e},
#no more and no less.
#>>
#Well, one of the lines that led to the present mess was my claiming -- on the
#basis of both CLL and some logical conveniences -- that {nu} and {du'u}
#expressions had more in common than just grammar. That was, of course, in
#the midst of the token/type argle-bargle, now happily irrelevant. Since all
#events always exist in Lojban, they are surely somewhat more abstract than
#objects -- they exist even when the objects in them don't, for example. Just
#like propositions in that respect. And properties. So far as I can see, the
#releative abstractness of various referents plays no real role in the present
#problem.
That's right: when Jorge was saying that "tu'a X" introduces another level of
abstraction, he was meaning basically that it embeds X within an implicit
subordinate bridi.
--And.
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John Cowan
> >So {viska lo'e boa} does make sense. Different from {viska lo boa}?
>
> To the extent that it would allow for personal visions, yes.
> In normal circumstances, {viska lo'e sincrboa} should require
> {viska lo sincrboa}. But this is because of the meaning of
> {viska}, not because of the meaning of {lo'e sincrboa}.
I find the concept "viska lo'e co'e" a bit disturbing, unless it were
construed as "seeing something which has visual features typical of X",
which would be yet a further extension of "lo'e". (Or would it?)
> The abstract generics that can't be seen are not referred to
> here. lo'e sincrboa ka'e se viska, boas can be seen.
That which can be seen has a color, but what is the color of lo'e sincrbo'a?
--
John Cowan jco...@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan
"The exception proves the rule". Dimbulbs think: "Your counterexample proves
my theory." Classicists think "'Probat' means 'tests': the exception puts the
rule to the proof." But legal historians know it means "Evidence for an
exception is evidence of the existence of a rule in cases not excepted from."
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Lionel Vidal
> {tu'o}, the "null operand" (nowhere further explained) is used here as a
> vacuous PA. The grammar requires a descriptor or a number here, but the
fact
> is that there is always exactly one thing satisfying this description, so
why
> get involved with all the problems (quantifiers especially) that using a
> regular form involves?
la xorxes cusku di'e
>{tu'o} is the "quantifier" you use when you don't want a
>quantifier.
What is then the semantic of {tu'o broda}? If it is used when there is
exactly one thing satisfying the description, why not be explicit
with {lo pa broda}?
mu'omi'e lioNEL
py...@aol.com
<<
I
think I understand how Jorge's {lo'e} is supposed to work, but
I'm not yet convinced that {lo'e} is the right solution to generalize
over all examples that have popped up in discussion.
>>
Do tell us. The worst that is likely to happen is that xorxes says (as he does with all my tries) that that is not it at all. He may even try to explain why not (anything is possible).
I agree that some of the cases that muddy the water are probably wrongly included, but I have trouble -- since I can't get a straight answer on what any of them mean -- which ones (but I am pretty sure about {pixra lo'e sincrboa}).
<<
#I suppose you mean {se li'i}, "I'm a visual experiencer of
#>>
#No, I meant {li'i} though I left out the {le} . Apparently the meaning has
#changed since the word was created by someone who lived primarily in a
It hasn't changed its meaning AFAIK. It's just that "viska lo li'i" means
>>
<<
IMO, the Lojban technical term "abstraction" is primarily grammatical
>>
Well, one of the lines that led to the present mess was my claiming -- on the basis of both CLL and some logical conveniences -- that {nu} and {du'u} expressions had more in common than just grammar. That was, of course, in the midst of the token/type argle-bargle, now happily irrelevant. Since all events always exist in Lojban, they are surely somewhat more abstract than objects -- they exist even when the objects in them don't, for example. Just like propositions in that respect. And properties. So far as I can see, the releative abstractness of various referents plays no real role in the present problem.
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And Rosta
> <<
> If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
> intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
> meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
> just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
> as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
> >>
> Some place back in that chocolate pile are some arguments against
> {tu'o} here (or anywhere), but I can't drag them out just now.
I remember seeing some arguments flit by without my having time
to register or digest them. If you can recover them, that would
be good.
> In
> any case, I think it is finally clear that xorxes' {lo'e ...} is
> different from {le/lo/tu'o/no'o du'u ce'u ...} -- and rather more complex.
I'm not saying I think the two are equivalent. I'm asking how {lo'e
broda cu brode} might be paraphrased using {du'u ce'u} and not
using {lo'e}.
> Is {ce'u da} two terms (as CLL appears to have it) or "lambda x" as
> good ogic would use it? I root for the latter but despair of
> achieving anything with {du'u/ka} anymore.
It's two terms, as per standard Lojban.
>
> <<
> But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose
> meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years
> upon years of discussion, should be binned
> >>
> I think we need more of them, since what can be said with them takes
> for ever without them. As for nil consensus, some parts of the
> language are just ahrder to master than others -- even for the people
> who invented them (encouraging sign of the language's autonomy).
Even I who purport to be a platonist find this a bit hard to swallow.
-- The idea that these cmavo have autonomous meanings waiting to be
discovered.
I'm all in favour of adding new meanings, new cmavo, etc. to the
language, or of deciding what existing cmavo should mean. What
I meant to say is that in a situation where we feel a need for
a cmavo to express meaning X, and there is in the ma'oste
a cmavo-form Y with no agreed meaning, the attempt to ascribe meaning
X to Y has to overcome the objections of people who think Y has
or should have some other meaning, and this is a waste of effort
when the only outcome that matters is that there be some cmavo
that means X.
--And.
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And Rosta
> And
> >
> > If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can
> > be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
> > resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
> > cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
> > seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
> > though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
> > express adequately in Lojban.
> >
>
> I think I've gotten my head round what xorxes means (I just have to hear him
> on le'e, and once more on how each gadri affects selma'o KA and I'll be able
> to write Croatian lojban). I can now move on to trying to understand someone
> else means as a preparation to finding out whether I can make any sense of
> what pc says.
>
> I can see two distinctions between "Africa is lion-inhabited" and "The
> [generic] lion lives in Africa", one of them is English gloss, inhabited
> having a slightly different connotation (in particular I see inhabitants as
> lois and not lo'es), the other is focus, the first on Africa, the second on
> Lions. What I don't see is why both of these shouldn't equally be lo'e
> cinfo, both in CLL and Croatian (OK, I'll stop this xorban business now)
I don't know what lo'e means, so I don't say they shouldn't equally
be lo'e cinfo. But I do say that the difference between the two English
sentences needs to be captured.
> > A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
> > the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
> > instead.
>
> Do you not agree that for all purposes, I like chocolat is {mi nelci lo'e
> xekri cakla} (I don't call the other colors chocolat, more like "yeuwk")?
White chocolate is the next best thing to sex. But be that as it may,
I don't know if it is {mi nelci lo'e cakla}. Certainly it's not
easy to see what else it could be, and hence this could be seen as
a paradigm example, along with {nitcu lo'e tanxe} etc. But like
you I would have thought "Africa is lion-inhabited" would involve
loi cinfo rather than lo'e cinfo, so I am not confident I grasp
the limits of lo'e. To put it more explicitly, I don't grasp the
use of {lo'e} outside so-called intensional contexts (like, need,
etc.).
--And.
py...@aol.com
<<
> Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i>>
> sincrboa}
Is that {mi viska se li'i (zo'e) sincrboa}? -- Which is okay,
though it'd be nice to be able to do it without resorting to
tanru. Or is it {mi viska lo li'i sincrboa}? -- Which would mean
seeing an experience -- not really what is wanted.
Oops! I see that someone has tinkered yet again with an unbroken concept to make a useless one (we all know where to find {lifri}, which to add insult to injusry uses {li'i} phrases as an object). I was thinking of the good old day when this idea first went round and it stood in the same relation to expreiences as {nu} does to events and so {viska lo li'i} made prefect sense, as good, anyhow, as {lifri lo nu}.
Sorry to see the old way go; especially since nothing was gained.
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py...@aol.com
<<
1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member
category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity
(e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is
counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an
extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity!
>>
I'm not sure what this means. Most one-member categories (I'm not sure what that means either, so I will read it as "set") that we are interested in are enormously more complex than the set of dogs, say. But moreover, {pa} is simpler by any normal measurement than {tu'o} (assuming that {tu'o} has any content at all).
<<
2. {lo pa broda} claims that there is only one broda. {tu'o broda}
does not make such a claim; it is just that there is no other
sensible interpretation for it, so it implies that there is only one
broda. {lo'e broda} does not claim that there is exactly one broda,
but is an instruction to conceptualize broda as a single-member
category.
>>
If some claim is essential for some operation, it is always better to make it than to imply it. The interpretation of {lo'e} -- xorxes' {lo'e} that is -- is contentious and, amazingly, even less clear than xorxes original or modified claims.
Invent Yourself
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 10:10:32AM -0500, Jordan DeLong wrote:
>
> > I was discussing this point with some people on IRC a while back, and
> > bunk I say! bunk! Of course unicorns exist: they're concepts.
>
> Not at all. The concept of a unicorn is a concept, and it exists, just
> as the concept of a horse exists. Otherwise we are in the position of
> saying that horses are animals, but unicorns are concepts, which is very ugly.
.i ji'a cfipu ko zo'o
.i la'e zo pavyseljirna .e la'e zo xirma cu sidbo jenai zasti dacti .i
ku'i la'e su'o sidbo cu zasti dacti
--
Before Sept. 11 there was not the present excited talk about a strike
on Iraq. There is no evidence of any connection between Iraq and that
act of terrorism. Why would that event change the situation?
-- Howard Zinn
py...@aol.com
<<
err, but then I can use {pa broda} which the book says is syntactically
the same as {lo pa broda}, and get only one marker
>>
The book had better say {pa broda} is the same as {pa lo broda}, NOT {lo pa broda}.
<<
I agree that in this case, all these amount to the same thing, but:
>>
Yes, there are often practical reasons for using one rather than the other (never for {tu'o} so far as I can tell). I was just talking about the truth conditions.
&:
<<
There is a difference between claiming something and implying something.
This shows up, for example, if the whole sentence is negated.
>>
Does this mean that {tu'o broda cu brode} and {tu'o broda na brode} both imply that there is only one broda, while {pa broda cu brode} does and {pa broda na brode} does not. That, if true, would be a reason for using {tu'o}. I can't think of any reason to think it is true in Lojban (but then, I have no idea what {tu'o} means in Lojban).
Jorge Llambias
la and cusku di'e
>I wonder whether,for the benefit of people other than Jorge & pc,
>Jorge could give us a canonical list of examples using {lo'e}.
I don't think I could give a canonical list. The examples
we've been using are things like {nelci lo'e cakla},
{nitcu lo'e tanxe}, {pixra lo'e sincrboa}, {simsa lo'e sfofa},
{claxu lo'e rebla}, etc. those are useful, but {lo'e} makes
sense in any position where {lo} does.
What do you think of the explanation of {broda lo'e brode}
in terms of {kairbroda}?
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
> And:
> > #What is then the semantic of {tu'o broda}? If it is used when there is
> > #exactly one thing satisfying the description, why not be explicit
> > #with {lo pa broda}?
> > Reasons:
> > 1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member
> > category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity
> > (e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is
> > counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an
> > extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity!
>
> the same as {lo pa broda},
This is incorrect. {pa broda} = {pa lo su'o broda}.
> and get only one marker. Besides, one should
> always worry about quantifiers, as they are always there, implicit
> or not.
For single-member categories (such as "Lionel Vidal"), there either
is no quantifier, or the choice of quantifier and quantifier
scope irrelevant. One should indeed generally worry about quantifiers,
but when single-member categories are involved, such worry is
entirely wasted. Marking single-member categories saves such a
waste of effort.
> Why not indicate your reader clearly that exactly one thing satisfy
> the description if it is indeed the case? This will relieve the reader to
> draw that eventually needed conclusion from the use of {tu'a}.
You mean {tu'o}? The reasons are those I gave in the message you are
replying to.
> > 2. {lo pa broda} claims that there is only one broda. {tu'o broda}
> > does not make such a claim; it is just that there is no other
> > sensible interpretation for it, so it implies that there is only one
> > broda.
>
> In that case, I don't see any differences as I do need this implication
> result to fully understand the semantic of {tu'o broda}.
There is a difference between claiming something and implying something.
This shows up, for example, if the whole sentence is negated.
--And.
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And Rosta
> I mean "I like chocolate", "that is like a sofa" and "that is a
> picture of a boa". They don't mean "there ia some chocolate such
> that I like it", "there is some sofa such that that is like it"
> or "there is some boa such that that is a picture of it". To get
> those latter meanings I would have to use {lo} instead of {lo'e}.
>
> I'm not sure why paradigm cases need to be in x1, but here are
> some: {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} "Lions live in Africa",
> which is different from "some lions live in africa" (lo),
> "all lions live in Africa" (ro), "most lions live in Africa" (so'e).
> {lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu", "Cats catch mice", which is
> different from saying that "some cats catch some mice", etc.
If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can
be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
express adequately in Lojban.
If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
Excuse my having read this previous thread in only a desultory
way -- I read your summary postings assiduously, but keeping
track of the debates with pc I find very wearing.
> Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:
> lo le la
> lo'e le'e ??
>
> But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.
If you really wanted to fill the gap you could pick a spare
cmavo -- {lai'e}, say.
But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose
meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years
upon years of discussion, should be binned.
A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
instead.
--And.
Jordan DeLong
> Lionel:
> > And:
> > > #What is then the semantic of {tu'o broda}? If it is used when there is
> > > #exactly one thing satisfying the description, why not be explicit
> > > #with {lo pa broda}?
> > > Reasons:
> > > 1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member
> > > category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity
> > > (e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is
> > > counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an
> > > extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity!
> >
> > err, but then I can use {pa broda} which the book says is syntactically
> > the same as {lo pa broda},
>
> This is incorrect. {pa broda} = {pa lo su'o broda}.
ju'oru'e, actualy {pa broda} = {pa lo ro broda}.
Or under chapter 16, {pa broda} = {pa da poi ke'a broda ku'o}
--
Jordan DeLong - frac...@allusion.net
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku
py...@aol.com
<<
>It isn't the same -- or at least has not yet
>been shown to be.
How can it not be the same, when I am defining my {kairsisku}
as Lojban's {sisku}?
>>
Sorry; I keep assuming you are being consistent. Your {kairsisku} applied to old {sisku} does not obviously give modern {sisku}, partly because modern {sisku}, while messy, dseems to be coherent, while {kairbroda} does not, at least in connection with {broda}.
<<><<
>le mi pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
>lo pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
>mi sisku le ka ce'u pavyseljirna
>(= mi sisku le ka lo pavyseljirna zo'u ce'u du py)
> >>
>Only the third of these is normal Lojban,
What is abnormal about the first two? They seem perfectly
reasonable to me. The one with {le'e} above would be, in
terms of official {sisku}:
mi sisku le ka le pavyseljirna zo'u ce'u du py
>>
t does not say so, of course, because no one thought up these kinds of weird cases back then, but the assumption was that the property involved was a nuclear one, not one that derives indirectly from something else, like" being thought of by Frank" or "being identical to Charlie." Once the nuclear proeprties are in hand, I suppose we can work out how the others work, but it is certainly notov\bvious that they are the same.
<<
mi sisku lo pavyseljirna poi mi pensi ke'a
There is a unicorn that I am thinking about, which I seek.
This can be true only if there is such a unicorn in the world
of the utterance.
>>
Dodge 2 (and the best reason to rethink the be-exist axis). I mean "in this world" as witness my not using any world shifters (assuming there are some agreed upon).
But again, I don't want anything in the base discussion to hang on {sisku} since I proably share your disgust with that predicate as now sued (but I think it had to be changed from the old form, which you seem to find acceptable. Odd!)
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Lionel Vidal
and:
> I don't see a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro}. What
> am I missing?
It does not matter as long as you exclude the case of 0 with {ro}, and
this...
pc:
>The {ro}-{su'o} distinction goes back to a time when someone thought
>that {ro}, "every," permitted the case of 0 of the whatsis and {su'o}
> did not. The first part of this turned out to be false in the official
line
I did not know that the case was settled. In any cases, the book is not
at all explicit about this and I think I remember a recent mail from
xorxes where he says he does include 0.
This being said, I agree that {ro} should not include the 0 case from
a logical and practical point of view.
> > Note that {pa broda} is nonetheless still the same in
> > our case than {tu'o broda}.
> Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here.
Sorry, that was badly expressed: I meant that the truth value and
the implication on the referent cardinality would be the same.
> 1. {lo pa} is sensitive to negation: whereas {tu'o broda na brode}
> is unproblematic, it corresponds to {lo pa broda na ku brode}, not
> to {lo pa broda na brode}.
Interresting: you seem to think that {naku} will have an impact
on moving through {lo pa}. I don't think {naku} will change the
inner quantifier of the {lo} expression. That is:
{lo pa broda naku brode} = {su 'o lo pa broda naku brode}
= {naku zu'o ro lo pa broda cu brode} = {ro lo pa broda na brode}
and, again with exclusion of the 0 case of {ro}
= {lo pa broda na brode}
Now, I may have a problem with the semantic of {na} and {naku},
specifically with the negation of the referent existence:
providing that with {lo broda cu brode} I claim 2 things,
the existence of at least one {broda} referent, and the {brode}
relationship, does the {na} or {naku} in {lo broda na/naku brode},
apart from deying the {brode} relationship, still claim (or imply)
the existence of at least one {broda} referent?
I would say yes with both {na} and {naku}, but after reading again
the related chapters of the book, I can't say it has been made explicit
(or I failed to see it).
> 2. {lo pa} makes a claim. I do not wish it to have to be the case
> that whenever I talk about a du'u I also claim that there is only
> one du'u. If I say {lo pa broda cu brode} I am claiming that
> (i) something is broda and brode, and (ii) the cardinality of
> lo'i broda is 1. But I want to be able to claim only (i).
If you want to claim only (i), than {lo} alone does just that.
> First off, let me note that {lo'e} serves as an adequate alternative
> to {tu'o}.
As I understand now your definition of {lo'e}, it cannot be a true
alternative to {tu'o}:
{lo'e broda cu brode} can be true even if {lo broda} has no referent,
because {lo'e broda} is mainly an category abstraction and does have
a referent, while {tu'o broda} implies the existence of a broda referent.
But I may have misunderstood your definition of {lo'e, given in the ever
lasting thread on 'chocolate and unicorns' :-)
mu'omi'e lioNEL
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And Rosta
> la pycyn cusku di'e
>
> >I agree that "generic" might be misleading. Is it your term or mine -- or
> >And's? In any case, can you suggest a better?
>
> I think any translation of {lo'e broda} that starts with "the"
> will be misleading, as English "the" is hardly ever used for
> this sense.
"The lion lives in Africa" is a classic type of example of a generic.
Cf.
"The Afghan is an indefatigable friend to his friends"
"The Afghans are indefatigable friends to their friends"
"An Afghan is an indefatigable friend to his friends"
"Afghans are indefatigable friends to their friends"
"Your Afghan is an indefatigable friend to his friends"
"Your Afghans are indefatigable friends to their friends"
"Johnny Afghan is an indefatigable friend to his friends"
-- all these could be called 'generics'.
--And.
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<<
Read it as "intensionally-defined set".>>
As opposed to what? I would take this to mean, set defined by its proeprty rather than it members, that is to say, a set as we normally talk about them (outside set theory, of course).
<<
> that we are
> interested in are enormously more complex than the set of dogs, say.
>>
I think that complexity is a red herring here.
<<
> But moreover, {pa} is simpler by any normal measurement than {tu'o}
> (assuming that {tu'o} has any content at all).
of word count.
>>
The crucial thing in this discussion is that only one of the things is operant, regardless of how many there are (in many cases we are not sure -- or, at least have very different views). So that {tu'o} is a word (but not a syllable) shorter than {lo pa} is not relevant and that it is longer than {pa} is (if word or syllable count is significant). The extra information that {to'u} gives, that furthermore there is only one of them, is irrrelevant and so should not be given at space at all, even {'o}.
<<
Quite so. And conversely, to make an inessential claim is a distraction
from the essential claim.
>>
see above
<<
> The interpretation of {lo'e} -- xorxes'
> {lo'e} that is -- is contentious and, amazingly, even less clear than
> xorxes original or modified claims.
but past experience makes me pessimistic. On the whole, if Jorge
and I understand and agree with each other, I'm usually fairly
confident that we're onto the Right Idea.
>>
I generally agree with that final principle -- you all do have a track record after all. But this time, you are so far beyond Cloud-cuckooland for your starting point, that I can't even catch up to your presuppositions, let alone what you derive from them. Further, since xorxes own description of his idea is inconsistent, I don't think even your agreement helps. But, on the other hand, the claim you both make, that you are at the same place, is not even obviously true, since no intertranslations (that do not assume the point at contention) have been provided, nor any explanation of either theory that coheres with even your own past practice, let alone with Lojban
(I think this whole discussion is now clearly not for this list at all, but for loCCan or (since that assumes some connection with Lojban beyond phonetic form of morphemes) engelang.
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Jordan DeLong
> In a message dated 9/18/2002 8:44:35 AM Central Daylight Time, nes...@free.fr
> writes:
[...]
> > la xorxes cusku di'e>
> > > a different klaim than {broda tu'a da}, where the quantification
> > > of {da} is within the {tu'a} abstraction. I don't know how
> > > you can defend the {tu'a} expressions for intensional contexts
> > > if you don't think so.
> >
> > I am lost here: I thought the grammar said clearly that in
> > {da zo'u broda tu'a da} the {da zo'u} could be freely omitted
> > with no change in semantic, and so I don't see how
> > {broda tu'a da} could claim a different thing, intensional contexts
> > or not. Or maybe I fail to read an other discussion where you
> > agree on redefining this grammar point in intensional contexts.
> > Could you give an example with true selbris where the two have
> > to be different?
>
> The grammar clearly says a number of things that are not so in at least some
> cases (the most famous is that {a broda b} = (b se broda a} , which does not
> hold when a and b are bound in place with different quantifiers: {ro da prami
> de}, "Everybody loves somebody" is not the same as {de se prami ro da} "There
> is at least one persom whom everybody loves").
[ note to lionel: the default quantifier on da/de/di is su'o, which is
where the ambiguity comes from: ]
This doesn't support that a broda b != b se broda a in the general
case. This merely shows that there is a different most-likely
interpretation of the quantification of the da/de/di variables based
on their order. Either of those two sentences *could* be interpreted
as the other, but le gerku cu batci mi is precisely the same as mi
se batci le gerku; both in possible meanings and in the most-likely
interpretation.
Furthermore, though the word order leads to different likely interpretation
it doesn't change the possible meanings.
ro da prami de
Can mean "Everyone loves >=one other (the same) person" just as much as it
can mean "Everyone loves someone (else)". Your mearly cheating with su'o
to try to claim the grammar doesn't fully explain this. The non-ambiguous
ways to make the two claims are:
ro da poi prenu cu prami lo drata be vo'a
Everyone loves someone other than themselves.
(in practice the be vo'a would likely be elided and inferred
through a zo'e).
ro da poi prenu cu prami le su'o prenu
Everyone loves the one-or-more persons.
These two claims *are* the exact same if you flip the terms. (Except
the former requires changing the vo'a to a vo'e).
> As for the quantifier bit, the grammar of intensional contexts has not been
> redefined, mainly because CLL does so little about defining it. So we say
> "clarified" instead of "changed." In any case, we would not want to go from
> {mi nitcu tu'a lo dinko} "I need a nail" (and any old one will do) to {da poi
> dinko zo'u mi nitcu da} "There is one particular nail I need" (or "some
> particular nails" but, in any case, nothing off the list will do). There are
> worse cases, where the embedded reference is to a non-existent, but the
> external reference is to an existent: {mi senva le du'u lo pavyselrorne klama
> mi} might well be true, but {da poi pavyselrorne zo'u mi sevna le du'u da
> klama mi} is not, since there are no unicorns.
[ what's a rorne? ]
I was discussing this point with some people on IRC a while back, and
bunk I say! bunk! Of course unicorns exist: they're concepts. If
I say {mi djica lenu lo pavyseljirna cu klama ti} there's nothing wrong
with the bridi, as I really do desire that su'o lo ro pavyseljirna
come (even if ro = 0; the su'o is just the number I'm wanting).
zo'o mi nelci le su'o su'o pavyseljirna cu zasti
.i zo'o lo no pavyseljirna cu zasti
Additionally, certainly you can dream a unicorn klama do, as unicorns
*do* exist in dreams. With:
da poi pavyseljirna zo'u mi senva ledu'u da klama mi
says "there is a unicorn such that I dreamt it came to me". Which
(assuming the speaker isn't lying) is perfectly fine. That
pavyseljirna exists as whatever it is that dreams/concepts are from
a biological standpoint, etc.
It should be noted also, that if I had actually had a dream, since I
have the unicorn in mind already, the better sentence would be
mi senva ledu'u le pavyseljirna cu klama mi
Ok I'm done rambling about this stuff for now.
Lionel Vidal
> Does this mean that {tu'o broda cu brode} and {tu'o broda na brode} both
> imply that there is only one broda, while {pa broda cu brode} does and {pa
> broda na brode} does not.
I don't think so. With {tu'o} (don't worry about quantifier) as with {pa}
(exactly one of potentially many which really are), you may infere that
there is only one broda by analysing and understanding the semantic
of {broda}, and this independently of the rest of the proposed bridi.
I think that only something like {lo pa broda} will clearly show that there
is only one broda without even looking at {broda}, providing that you agree
before hand on the truth of the bridi.
I tend now to see {tu'o} as some shorcut for {lopa}, though I am not
sure of its usefullness (you don' even gain a letter :-), but I agree you
could say you gain one word).
mu'omi'e lioNEL
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<<
I think any translation of {lo'e broda} that starts with "the"
will be misleading, as English "the" is hardly ever used for
this sense.
>>
<<
For a given {broda}, we define the predicate {kairbroda}, so
that it means "x1 is broda to something that has property x2".
(Let's assume broda has only two places, other places would
remain for kairbroda the same as for broda).
We can now give a precise definition of {broda} in terms
of {kairbroda}:
ko'a broda ko'e = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du ko'e
ko'a is broda to ko'e = ko'a is broda to something that
has the property of being ko'e
>>
That works out all right, but I would resent calling RHS a *definition* of LHS; if any thing, the defining goes the other way -- as the status of the words involved quite rightly suggest. ({broda} is primitive, {kairbroda} is derived from it). I'll skip over the question of whther there is suc a *property* du'u ce'u du ko'e, since the existence of the Lojban phrase is all that is called for here. I don't see any gain in doing this -- other than longwindedness and obscurity.
I tend, by the way, to ve VERY suspicious of any maneuver that involves burying a quantifier inside a predicate. This is a favorite trick of philosophical snake-oil salesmen to get you to treat the predicate as a normal one and then they pull the "something" out, to the amazement of all (and the confounding of the actual situation). I don't suppose you are doing this deliberately with that intent, but be aware that there is a danger here that can get even snake-oil men occasionally to buy their own 'panacea.'
<<
Now if we introduce quantifiers:
da zo'u ko'a broda da = da zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du da
The same for {da poi brode}, which is {lo brode}, and
which can be moved away from the prenex, but only in the
first expression:
ko'a broda lo brode = da poi brode zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
ce'u du da
>>
Yeah, but this is getting more and more complicated without gaining anything. Given the definition of {kairbroda}, all of these follow from -- and mean the same as -- the natural Lojban expressions they *explicate* How will this help?
<<
It is clear that we cannot remove {da poi brode} from the
prenex in the right hand side expression, because that would
put it inside of du'u, and the sense of the whole expression
would change.
>>
This is not obvious and I am inclined at first glance to think it false. Quantifying in -- moving a quantifier from outside an intensional context to inside -- is rarely a problem, though some information information may be lost. In this case, a thing such that there is a brode to which it is identical will also be a thing that has the property of there being a brode to which it is identical. They look to be materially equivalent, though I suppose the meanings ar slightly different -- just not enough to make a practical difference.There may be a catch somewhere, but I don't see it now.
<<
Now, what about the expression {ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
ce'u du lo brode}? Is there no way to express it with
broda as the selbri? Let's define {lo'e brode} such that:
ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du lo brode
But {ce'u du lo brode} is just {ce'u brode}, so we can
simplify a bit more:
ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode
>>
I smells snake. To the first question, the answer is yes: {ko'a broda lo brode}. So, not to my complete surprise (but to my considerable disappointment) {lo'e broda} turns out to be a messy way of saying {lo broda}, so far as I can see.
<<
This can be repeated for {lo'e brode} in x1 or any other
place just by defining the appropriate corresponding selbri.
>>
With {selkairbroda} : "something with property x1 bears the relation broda to x2" Looks like the same problem.
<<
I think this analysis works for all the "intensional context"
selbri (indeed the redefinition of {sisku} was an attempt to do
something like this, the gi'uste {sisku} corresponds to the
{kairsisku} that one has to define in order to give the
expansion of {sisku lo'e brode} with original {sisku}.
>>
I don't see the intensional predicates in here at all. If {broda} is intensional, then x2 will be a property of intensions {... du'u ce'u du le/lo/tu'o nu/du'u ... brode} and, since all intensions always exist there will be even less problem with the collapse. I don't see how -- as you clearlly intend -- this move even looks like it gets rid of or inside an intension, unless ther is another predicate here that buries the intension along with the quantifier, an even riskier procedure.
Your move is somewhat like the one in getting to the present {sisku} (I knew there was an objective reason for disliking that move), but not enough to get any advantage from it -- {sisku} needs the property and cannot shift back to the object at all, while this {lo'e} never gets off the object level for all its locutions to the contrary.
<<
But the same expansion applies to every selbri, not just the
"intensional context" ones. For example:
ko'a viska lo'e broda = ko'a kairviska tu'o du'u ce'u broda
He sees-something-with-the-property-of
being broda
(No claim that there is something such that it is seen, the
"something" of the English gloss is part of the predicate.
Normally of course there will be something that is seen,
but this is not part of what is claimed.)
>>
The salesman's hook. It is exactly what is claimed, wherever the quantifer is buried (and we did not even look at what negation does here) and burying the quantifier is correspondingly uninformative, misleading, or just a plain cheat.
How is {ko'a kairviska tu'o du'u ce'u broda} going to be true if there is not something there to have the property of being a broda. {sisku} is not a good model here, because it always took an intensional place -- and {viska} never does (you can't see what ain't there)
<<
I don't think I could give a canonical list. The examples
we've been using are things like {nelci lo'e cakla},
{nitcu lo'e tanxe}, {pixra lo'e sincrboa}, {simsa lo'e sfofa},
{claxu lo'e rebla}, etc. those are useful, but {lo'e} makes
sense in any position where {lo} does.
What do you think of the explanation of {broda lo'e brode}
in terms of {kairbroda}?
>>
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And Rosta
> >Does {mi
> >nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details later)
> >"I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e sfofa}"?
>
> If your "anything" there is not a {da}, ok. But we don't have
> anything in Lojban to stand for that English "anything"
> (other than {lo'e}).
Are there good examples without intensional predicates like nelci?
--And.
jjllambias2000
la lioNEL cusku di'e
> I am lost here: I thought the grammar said clearly that in
> {da zo'u broda tu'a da} the {da zo'u} could be freely omitted
> with no change in semantic,
No, you can only omit the prenex if the term is in the main
selbri: {da zo'u broda da} is indeed equivalent to {broda da},
but when it is within another bridi, {tu'a da} is {le du'u
da co'e}, then the quantifier can only go to the prenex of
that inner bridi: {broda le du'u da zo'u da co'e}.
> and so I don't see how
> {broda tu'a da} could claim a different thing, intensional contexts
> or not.
There are no special provisions for intensional contexts in
Lojban. All these manipulations work the same independently
of the meaning of {broda}.
> Or maybe I fail to read an other discussion where you
> agree on redefining this grammar point in intensional contexts.
No, nothing here is redefined. The only thing that can be
considered non-standard is my definition of {lo'e}, but
since there is no clear official definition, it is hardly
a redefinition.
> Could you give an example with true selbris where the two have
> to be different?
lo skami zo'u mi nitcu tu'a sy
There is a computer such that I need to do
something about it (or something be done about it,
or that it do something, or... but the point is that
there is a computer in such a situation)
mi nitcu tu'a lo skami
I need that there be a computer such that I do something
about, or it does something, etc.
> I don't understand your use of {tu'o} here. Is that what makes
> {du'u ce'u du k'oe} a true property? Or to say it differently,
> how do you get a property out of a predication abstraction?
{ka ce'u broda} is equivalent to {du'u ce'u broda}
There was a lot of discussion about this in the past. You can
just read {du'u ce'u} as {ka} if you like. The difference
between {du'u} and {ka} is that when no {ce'u} is made
explicit, then {ka} indicates that there is at least one
while {du'u} indicates that there is none.
{tu'o} is the "quantifier" you use when you don't want a
quantifier.
> Sorry if my questions sound too basic: I am just trying to
> follow the discussion and understand the different point of
> views, being well aware that my lojban current understanding
> may be inapropriate.
Good luck! :)
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>I have some idea what your boa is like, but I can't paint a reliable
>picture
>of it yet because too many things I need to know to do a picture I don't
>know
>from knowing only that it is a boa.
Then you can't make lo pixra be le mi sincrboa, but you won't
have any trouble making lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa. There are
of course many possible pixra be lo'e sincrboa, and they don't
have to all look alike.
>Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa}
I suppose you mean {se li'i}, "I'm a visual experiencer of
something being a boa".
>(this also covers the {lo} case but does not entail it). Why is {lo'e} a
>no-no?
It is certainly not a no-no! {lo'e} is probably a yes-yes
anywhere {lo} is, though neither entails the other.
>If I can paint it, I can see it surely.
Not always, but in the case of boas yes, certainly.
> Either {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le
>frike} means "if anything were a lion, it would live in Africa," which is
>obviously false,
And not what I mean.
>or it means (I have to unpack some more) "In some world
>there is something which is a lion and lives in Africa," which is -- in the
>case of lions, but not of unicorns -- of little practical value over {lo
>cinfo cu xabju le frike}.
This is not what I mean either. I don't make any claim about lions
in particular, neither in this nor in possible worlds. It's a claim
about Africa in particular and lions in general.
>The problem with {pixra} is that boahood pervades too few viusal
>properties to allow a picture to be made, if it is at all representational
>(and if it is not, anything goes and I have to take your word for what it
>represents and by what coding, so almost any visual image will do and the
>whole becomes really uninteresting).
So you probably would not agree that Saint-Exup�ry's picture is
lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa poi ba'o tunlo lo xanto. You don't
have to take _my_ word, you have to take the word of the speakers
of the language in question: English in the case of "boa" and
Lojban in the case of {sincrboa}, though for these words there
shouldn't be much deviation from language to language, probably
more variation within English itself.
><<
>I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas.
>I did say it deals with particular events.
> >>
>OK -- and how can there be a particular event involving sofas that does not
>invlve a particular sofa?
For example: {le nu mi nitcu lo'e sfofa cu purci}
"My needing a sofa is in the past".
le nu mi nitcu lo'e sfofa is a particular event involving sofas
that does not involve a particular sofa.
>Well, as I said, it is more like liking an experience, which seems less
>problematic -- not that I see that much problem with liking an event, in
>the
>appropriate sense.
I don't see any problem with liking an event. I think
{mi nelci le nu da sfofa} is a perfectly legitimate thing
to say. I just don't agree that {mi nelci lo'e sfofa}
is equivalent to {mi nelci lo nu lo sfofa cu co'e}. They
are both meaningful, but different.
>Perhaps some of our discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa
>co'e} is that we read it as "I like the event of there being something
>about
>a sofa" rather than "I like something about sofas" which is a better bit of
>English.
I don't feel discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa cu co'e}.
I don't think {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} is wrong.
I prefer {nelci lo'e sfofa} for "liking sofas".
{tu'a sfofa} is much more ambiguous than {lo'e sfofa}.
In some context {tu'a lo sfofa} could mean "doing it on the sofa"
for example, something which {lo'e sfofa} cannot mean.
>Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since
>everything is on the same level in Lojban.
I think {fasnu} and {dacti} are not synonymous. To that extent
at least nu-things are not at the same level as sofa-things.
>And your case is ultimately
>talking about the properties of a sofa, not about sofas
I guess we will never agree about that.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
> la and cusku di'e
>
> >be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
> >resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
> >cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
> >seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
> >though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
> >express adequately in Lojban.
>
> of {lo'e} don't have it in x1: because in English x1 corresponds
> to the subject, and the subject is something about which we
> say something, and this is not what happens with {lo'e}.
> (Indeed bringing {lo} to the subject position by fronting
> to the prenex is the best way to show the inadequacy of {lo} in
> these cases.) {lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu} still works for
> "cats catch mice", as there is nothing being referred to in
> this case, I think.
So how would you do "The [generic] lion lives in Africa"?
> >If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
> >intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
> >meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
> >just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
> >as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
>
> I can't do that, because I don't want to refer to the
> Lion intension when talking about lions. I only refer
> to the Lion intension when talking about meanings, but
> that's not what we do in ordinary discourse: we use
> meanings, we don't talk about them. My contention
> is that {lo'e cinfo} cannot be expressed as {le broda}
> or {lo broda} for any broda, just like {zi'o} cannot be
> replaced by any {le broda} or {lo broda}.
I'm not suggesting that as a satisfactory substitute for lo'e;
I'm suggesting it as a way of making explicit what lo'e is
short for. For instance, "ko'a cinfo" can be said as
"tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo ku ckaji ko'a" -- there you're
talking about lions yet referring to the Lion intension,
so it's not impossible, even if it is not the way you'd
ordinarily want to express it.
> >A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
> >the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
> >instead.
>
> I don't mind my debate with pc, indeed it helps me to
> clarify at least to myself if not to him what I mean.
> I think my use of {lo'e} has enough in common with
> the gloss "the typical" (even if it's not the perfect
> gloss) that I can use it. And I think it would be much
> harder to get anyone else to accept a new cmavo than to
> accept my usage of {lo'e}.
OK. Once you've persuaded pc you'll have to said about
persuading everyone else; it's the one xorxesism I've
never bought.
--And.
Invent Yourself
> John:
> > But lo pavyseljirna cu blabi, "some unicorn is white", that's rubbish.
>
> {lo ka'e pavyseljirna cu blabi} or else {lo su'o mu'ei pavyseljirna
> cu blabi} is true (according to my beliefs). {lo ca'a pavysljirna
> cu blabi} is false.
la'e zo pavyseljirna cu gunma loi selkai be pa'u lo kamblabi .i ja'o ma'i
le sidbo py. blabi
John Cowan
> {lo ka'e pavyseljirna cu blabi} or else {lo su'o mu'ei pavyseljirna
> cu blabi} is true (according to my beliefs). {lo ca'a pavysljirna
> cu blabi} is false.
I read "lo ka'e pavyseljirna" as "something(s) which have the (innate)
capability of being unicorns," and I don't think they exist either.
If you want to talk of unicorns, I think you either move (implicitly or
explicitly) into a world where there are unicorns simpliciter, or else
you have to go meta and talk of concepts of unicorns, statements about
unicorns, or whatever.
"Anything you can do, I can do meta ..."
--
We call nothing profound jco...@reutershealth.com
that is not wittily expressed. John Cowan
--Northrop Frye (improved) http://www.reutershealth.com
py...@aol.com
<<
I don't recall that being the official line -- indeed, according
to what I do recall, the official line is what you say it isn't.
Is it in Woldy somewhere?
>>
I can't find it, but I suppose that in the absence of official word to the contrary, logical rules apply, and, in logic, "all x" entails "some x." In addition, xorxes and I just finished a round on the whole mess again, with the upshot that the assumed possition is existential import, with special quantifiers to remove that assumption, and, of course, the logician trick (all x, if ... x, then --- x) as well.
<<
Anyway, even with nonimporting ro, I don't see how {pa lo su'o}
differs from {pa lo ro}.
>>
My point was exactly: there isn't any any more, once the situation was clarified.
<<
I think it is inaccurate to speak of "the Lojban {lo'e}" in
distinction to xorxes's and mine. It is not perverse to construe
the ma'oste's gloss of {lo'e} as a clumsy attempt to capture the
notion of generic reference, and what xorxes and I have been doing
is trying to get a handle on generic reference
>>
Not perverse, but not forced eithere. "the typical x" is a prefectly understandable and used expression in English and different from the "the generic x." Part of the baseline, as I understand it, is that the English text is to be taken as the most accurate description of the Lojban meaning, so I am forced to go with it. Of course, the description of {le'e} supports the official reading, since the two are related in the usual o/e way.
As I have said (back there somewhere), I think the official line is a mistake. We could have a more general notion (whether it is the generic one or not I am unsure) and handle several of these oblique references (typical, average, ...) by modifications within its scope. But that requires a relatively clear idea of the function that this general gadri represents. And I have laid that out -- inadequately so far, but plausibly in the light of the corresponding things in English. Meanwhile, I work around the official line.
<<
You're right that it has not been established whether the inner
quantifier has the status of presupposition/conventional implicature
-- i.e. being outside what is being asserted.
However, since Lojban generally does not (or never, even?) use
presupposition/conventional implicature, the default should
be that the inner cardinality is being asserted. That doesn't
stop anyone adducing arguments as to why this default should be
overridden, though.
>>
I take it that existence of {na'i} is itself a recognition of the role of presuppositions and perhaps conventional implicatures. I don't think we have any usage, but my intuition (based on English, and maybe other languages in their philosophical modes) is that getting the number wrong in this way makes any sentence, not just any atomic sentence, false.
<<
If there are more than one broda then {tu'o broda} is ambiguous
-- it is underspecified, and to form an interpretation the hearer
will have to insert a quantifier. The same goes for when there is
only one broda. In other words, {tu'o broda} is neither true
nor false, because it expresses an incomplete logical formula.
>>
I am not sure what this means: {tu'o broda}, not being a sentence even, is necessarily neither true nor false . The two possibilities that come to mind are
1) that you really want this to involve a presupposition or implicature, neither true nor false when its "claim" fails (but it seems to be the same even when it is met)
2) that it is a flag (like {lo'e} in my mind) that the sentence as a whole is a fac,on de parler for some complex expression in which no one piece matches the {tu'o} piece of the surface. If it is like {lo'e}, I would find this plausible, but that association unsupported so far. And I have seen nothing like an account of what the undrlying structure might be, by you.
<<
Yes. It is indispensible because the syntax requires a gadri or
quantifier to be present at the start of a sumti. Ideally it
would be possible to omit tu'o, but the syntax won't allow it;
it's very much analogous to the use of dummy _there_ and _it_
in English to fill obligatory subject positions.
>>
OK, this is a start at what the underlying structure is, as the English "is" and "there" are marks for siome following complex structure is the real subject. What is flagged here?
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In a message dated 9/13/2002 2:45:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
<<
> {lo'e broda} is special in that it does not instantiate {da}.
> {broda lo'e brode} does not logically entail {broda da}, the
> way {broda la djan} does. In this respect it is like {broda
> zi'o} which also does not entail {broda da}.
> >>
Yes, I see that that is the analogy you are using. But it is a bad one.
{lo'e broda} des not go to bound form because, although it is a surface
sumti, it is not a surface referring word. {zi'o} on the other hand does not
quantify up because it is not a sumti at all -- we don't quantify over {se}
or {ui} or (closest) {i}.
<<
"I like sofas, but there's just no sofa that I like",
while contradictory at some psychological level, is not
logically contradictory.
>>
If the "sofas" here is {lo'e sfofa}, whether this is contradictory or not
will depend upon just what {lo'e} means -- it clearly will not work with
"typical" and probably not with "average." Clearly "ideal" presents no
problems, but I am unsure about "stereotypical." And, of course, I still
have no idea just where your usage fits into all of this.
<<
>?! Your {lo'e} is more general that Lojban's?!
If {nelci lo'e cakla} were restricted to liking some particular
kind of chocolate, (ordinary, was it?) then yes, my {lo'e}
is more general, as it's only about chocolate, not about
typical chocolate, ordinary chocolate or any other restriction
on the concept of chocolate.
>>
I suspect this is a terminological muddle (again). I meant that Lojban opens
up a broad possibility for things that can be true of {lo'e broda}, anything
that is typical across the set of broda, and I have been taking your position
to be that {lo'e broda} does was restricted to inherent (or close on)
properties of the members of that set. And it still does seem to be that way,
since the relevant set of properties seem to be just those very close to
inherent in being chocolate. Lacking the details yet of your {lo'e}, I can't
translate it out (I'm not sure I can translate any of these into more
explicit Lojban) but the Lojban form of your sentence would be something like
"Typically, if I were to have (probably eat) a piece of chocolate, I would
like it." In this context, the "typical" goes not on the chocolate but on
the whole situation. I don't think that is always true, though I have
trouble coming up with clear counter examples. I sometimes think that {lo'e
cinfo cu xabju la frikas} will do, but then I think that is just "Typically,
if a thing were a lion, then it would live in Africa." But neither of these
restricts the sorts of properties that may be involved -- or the cases that
count for the truth of the claim, but rather allow for a broad range of
possibly true sentence. I would take it that, in your case, {lo'e cinfo cu
xabju la frikas} is much less certainly true, since, even zoos aside, lions
live, and can and have lived, in lots of other places (currently only
India/Pakistan, but once at the gates of Rome and Athens). But, of course, I
am not sure, since I don't know what yours means.
<<
>Does {mi
>nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details later)
>"I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e sfofa}"?
If your "anything" there is not a {da}, ok. But we don't have
anything in Lojban to stand for that English "anything"
(other than {lo'e}).
>>
The "anything" is just {roda}, I think, but it is in an intensional contexts
of sentence length at least. Notice that this sentence is to explain {lo'e},
so {lo'e} has no place in it -- its components have been spread over the
whole sentence. {lo'e broda} is ultimately an improper symbol in Russell's
sense -- when the semantics are laid out, there is nothing to correspond to
that symbol, but the whole sentence works.
(cf descriptions in Russell, which are improper symbols, so that "the king of
France is bald" "really" is "there is something that is a king of France and
is such that any thing that is a king of France is identical with it, and it
is bald." -- with various additional fillips as complications arose.) But
worse because the expansion is intensional (always?)
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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2>In a message dated 9/13/2002 2:45:04 PM Central Daylight Time, jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">{lo'e broda} is special in that it does not instantiate {da}.<BR>
{broda lo'e brode} does not logically entail {broda da}, the<BR>
way {broda la djan} does. In this respect it is like {broda<BR>
zi'o} which also does not entail {broda da}.<BR>
></BLOCKQUOTE>></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Yes, I see that that is the analogy you are using. But it is a bad one. {lo'e broda} des not go to bound form because, although it is a surface sumti, it is not a surface referring word. {zi'o} on the other hand does not quantify up because it is not a sumti at all -- we don't quantify over {se} or {ui} or (closest) {i}.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">"I like sofas, but there's just no sofa that I like",<BR>
while contradictory at some psychological level, is not<BR>
logically contradictory.<BR>
>><BR>
If the "sofas" here is {lo'e sfofa}, whether this is contradictory or not will depend upon just what {lo'e} means -- it clearly will not work with "typical" and probably not with "average." Clearly "ideal" presents no problems, but I am unsure about "stereotypical." And, of course, I still have no idea just where your usage fits into all of this.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>?! Your {lo'e} is more general that Lojban's?!<BR>
<BR>
If {nelci lo'e cakla} were restricted to liking some particular<BR>
kind of chocolate, (ordinary, was it?) then yes, my {lo'e}<BR>
is more general, as it's only about chocolate, not about<BR>
typical chocolate, ordinary chocolate or any other restriction<BR>
on the concept of chocolate.<BR>
>><BR>
I suspect this is a terminological muddle (again). I meant that Lojban opens up a broad possibility for things that can be true of {lo'e broda}, anything that is typical across the set of broda, and I have been taking your position to be that {lo'e broda} does was restricted to inherent (or close on) properties of the members of that set. And it still does seem to be that way, since the relevant set of properties seem to be just those very close to inherent in being chocolate. Lacking the details yet of your {lo'e}, I can't translate it out (I'm not sure I can translate any of these into more explicit Lojban) but the Lojban form of your sentence would be something like "Typically, if I were to have (probably eat) a piece of chocolate, I would like it." In this context, the "typical" goes not on the chocolate but on the whole situation. I don't think that is always true, though I have trouble coming up with clear counter examples. I sometimes think that {lo'e cinfo cu xabju la frikas} will do, but then I think that is just "Typically, if a thing were a lion, then it would live in Africa." But neither of these restricts the sorts of properties that may be involved -- or the cases that count for the truth of the claim, but rather allow for a broad range of possibly true sentence. I would take it that, in your case, {lo'e cinfo cu xabju la frikas} is much less certainly true, since, even zoos aside, lions live, and can and have lived, in lots of other places (currently only India/Pakistan, but once at the gates of Rome and Athens). But, of course, I am not sure, since I don't know what yours means.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>Does {mi<BR>
>nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details later)<BR>
>"I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e sfofa}"?<BR>
<BR>
If your "anything" there is not a {da}, ok. But we don't have<BR>
anything in Lojban to stand for that English "anything"<BR>
(other than {lo'e}).<BR>
>><BR>
The "anything" is just {roda}, I think, but it is in an intensional contexts of sentence length at least. Notice that this sentence is to explain {lo'e}, so {lo'e} has no place in it -- its components have been spread over the whole sentence. {lo'e broda} is ultimately an improper symbol in Russell's sense -- when the semantics are laid out, there is nothing to correspond to that symbol, but the whole sentence works.<BR>
(cf descriptions in Russell, which are improper symbols, so that "the king of France is bald" "really" is "there is something that is a king of France and is such that any thing that is a king of France is identical with it, and it is bald." -- with various additional fillips as complications arose.) But worse because the expansion is intensional (always?)<BR>
</FONT></HTML>
py...@aol.com
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In a message dated 9/12/2002 11:19:21 PM Central Daylight Time,
jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
<<
> >These seem to me to be paradigm cases (well, not quite, since none of them
> >has {lo'e ...} as first argument) of talking about lo'e ..., which is an
> >intension (in some sense or other -- I am not at all such which), isn't
> it?
> >You say you like it or that that is like it or that is a picture of it (a
> >notion I have a lot of trouble with -- abstract expressionism?)
>
> You know perfectly well that is not what I mean.
> I mean "I like chocolate", "that is like a sofa" and "that is a
> picture of a boa". They don't mean "there ia some chocolate such
> that I like it", "there is some sofa such that that is like it"
> or "there is some boa such that that is a picture of it". To get
> those latter meanings I would have to use {lo} instead of {lo'e}.
>>
As I had said repeatedly then, I no longer knew *what* you meant; the various
explanations did not jell into any one thing -- except that it should work as
you say and that it involved types, which two did not jell in the that
terminology.
<<
I'm not sure why paradigm cases need to be in x1, but here are
some: {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} "Lions live in Africa",
which is different from "some lions live in africa" (lo),
"all lions live in Africa" (ro), "most lions live in Africa" (so'e).
{lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu", "Cats catch mice", which is
different from saying that "some cats catch some mice", etc.
>>
That is just the way the paradigms run; there is obviously nothing special
about it except presentation. I would have seen the examples as simply false
sentences types. And, even from my new point of view I have trouble with
them -- now if I am to separate your {lo'e} from Lojban's, since these seem
perfect cases of the latter and imperfect ones (if I now understand it) of
the former.
<<
> Does {lo'e sfofa} refer to the proximate type of
>sofas? Apparently not. What then does it refer to?
{lo'e sfofa} does not refer. It is like {zi'o} to that extent.
Even in the most restricted sense of "the typical" it has to
be like that to make any sense.
>>
I now understand and agree with the starter here (properly understood -- this
may not be the best way to put it "its reference is oblique'). But the
reference to {zi'o} is totally misleading, since {zi'o} is a semantic plug,
functionally like {se}, for creating new predicates from old. Pointing to
"the typical" is better, but that does not work like {zi'o} in any way I can
think of and yet makes perfectly good sense in various contexts (different
kinds of sense, to be sure, in different contexts)
<<
>It is obviously not a
>meaningless expression (or you would not fight so hard about it).
Obviously it has the meaning of {sfofa}. It certainly maintains
the intension.
>>
No, it doesn't (if I finally have it right. No, in any case). The sense of
{sfofa} is a property, the reference of {sfofa} is a set and neither of these
work for {lo'e sfofa}, which (as you just noted) has no reference and, in
fact, no sense neither.
<<
> So, it has
>a sense, that would pick out something in the world, if there is the
>appropriate sort of thing in the world.
No, it doesn't pick anything in the world. It just puts to use
the sense of {sfofa}. It does not get anywhere near the extension.
>>
I guess it is the locution "puts to use the sense of {sfofa}" that makes this
seem a muddle. If {lo'e sfofa} works off the essential properties of {sfofa}
as the Lojban version does off the typical ones, then I suppose this is a way
of putting it -- though then the examples above are all bad, since they do
not deal with essential properties. If only typical properties are involved,
then how is it different from the Lojban version?
<<
>Otherwise it fails to refer, perhaps
>accidentally, because the world is shy this sort of object.
It intrinsically does not refer, like {zi'o}. But unlike {zi'o}
it adds some sense to the predicate from which it removes a place.
So {simsa lo'e sfofa} behaves just like the predicate "x1 is like
a sofa in property x2". (I suppose {simsa zi'o} would behave like
"x1 has property x2" maybe.)
>>
As noted before, the first part here is just what any real sumti does; there
is nothing special about {lo'e}. {x simsa la djan y} behaves like the
predicate "x is like John in property y." What is special about (lo'e}? It
seems to refer somehow else how does it mean (there is a good answer to this,
but I haven't seen it in your stuff yet).
<<
> Since you seem
>to think that {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is true, the approriate sort of thing
>must be in the world
No, there is nothing in the world that is a referent of {lo'e sfofa},
neither in my usage nor in the more restricted definition
as "the typical".
>>
?! Your {lo'e} is more general that Lojban's?! Now, even if I have it
finally in the right category, I've lost the specifics. I can think of at
least four members of this category: the typical (about properties common
across the set), the ideal (about properties the members of the set should
have), the stereotypical (about properties we think are common across the
set), and the average (about averages in whatever sense somebody wants to
work them out, so possibly open to several subtypes). But, yes, the
references made by {lo'e sfofa} are oblique and {lo'e sfofa} by itself has no
referent -- nor, strictly speaking, sense neither.
<<
>(we have disallowed some weeks ago the possibility that
>some places are inherently opaque [what I used to call intensional before
>there go to be too many things getting called by that name]
We agree there. The x2 of {simsa} is not inherently opaque.
It is perfectly possible to say {ta simsa lo sfofa}: "there is
at least one sofa such that that is like it". Which does not
make exactly the same claim as {ta simsa lo'e sfofa}.
>>
Yes, there may not be anything that has just the properties that {lo'e sfofa}
puts into the mix. I suspect that that means that the expansions of sentnces
containing {lo'e sfofa} turn out to be intensional from top to bottom or at
least hypothetical (and that probably amounts to the same thing). Does {mi
nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details later)
"I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e sfofa}"?
[I'm skipping over the question of what to do with liking or being like
something that does not exist, which I now see as a separate issue.]
<<
Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:
lo le la
lo'e le'e ??
But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.
>>
Cute! But doesn't that require that there be an instance of Santa? I think
the text is just unclear on this point (maybe never even brings it usp -- a
wise move).
<<
>What the fatal fandango is it? How (in
>addition) does taking {lo'e sfofa} to refer to the proximate type of lo'i
>sfofa, take the type (which one?) as a token of types --
Tokens of the class "types" are the things we talk about in
this meta-discussion. Abstract entities like sets and numbers.
Not things we want to talk about in ordinary discourse.
>>
Well, sets and numbers aren't types, but I don't suppose that is what you mea
n. The quotes here are confusing as is the talking about tokens of a class
(types have tokens, classes only have members). I still can't unpack this
with any confidence. I guess you mean that we ordinarily talk about ordinary
things, even if obliquely, and only in metathery do we talk about abstract
things directly. But I am not sure how this comes out of what you actually
say (and no amount of adding or removing quotes helps in this one).
<<
>and what does that
>mean? The proximate type of all the sfofa is, of course, a token of the
>type
>type, since it is a type (this gets hairy in practice, but has a variety of
>solutions).
I talk about sofas, (not about _some_ sofas, not about _each_ sofa,
not about all the sofas that exist or could exist taken en masse,
also not about the property of being a sofa, but just about sofas).
>>
Yes, this fits. Except, of course, that you do talk about all sofas, just
not directly -- and ditto the proerty of being a sofa (at least in some
cases: I assume that {lo'e sfofa cu sfofa} is trivally true).
<<
>So, as noted earlier, what would be an example of talking about a type?
This whole conversation has been mostly about types and such, not
about sofas.
>>
Yeah, but you keep saying that the other is not about sofas, either, though
it also is not about types.
<<
>Putting {lo'e broda} in first place? Obviously not. Using {li lo'e broda
>li'u}? Hopefully not. What then?
We don't have a special article for talking about tokens of the
class "type", of course. It would make no sense to have one.
It is bad enough that we have a special article to talk about
tokens of the class "set", something we rarely want to do in
ordinary conversation.
>>
Well, but it would be -- like sets (which we have made reference to quite
often in this discussion, not) -- useful for discussion like this. As it
turns out, we would not have used the notion of type in this discussion,
since the target point was not about tokens and types at all, but about
oblique reference (I just made that fairlya ccurate term up on the fly to
sort out this case from others that were also intensional in very different
ways).
<<
To talk about types we need a word that means "x1 is a type of
property x2" or "x1 is a type of set x2" or some such. Maybe {cnano}
is one such predicate? (Probably it won't always be used in that
sense.) But then we can talk about le cnano be le ka sfofa, the
type of class "sofa". I certainly do not want to claim
{ta simsa le cnano be le ka sfofa} in that sense of {cnano}!
>>
{cnano} won't work for "type" in any clear way, but it is a good start for I
take it what is going on with {lo'e} and kin ("the average" version, anyhow).
It gives values not types and it works off the properties too directly. I am
-- depite my conviction that Lojban could use a good way to talk about types
and tokens -- presently fervently hoping we don't get involved in it for a
long time.
--part1_138.143433a1.2ab36751_boundary
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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2>In a message dated 9/12/2002 11:19:21 PM Central Daylight Time, jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">>These seem to me to be paradigm cases (well, not quite, since none of them<BR>
>has {lo'e ...} as first argument) of talking about lo'e ..., which is an<BR>
>intension (in some sense or other -- I am not at all such which), isn't it?<BR>
>You say you like it or that that is like it or that is a picture of it (a<BR>
>notion I have a lot of trouble with -- abstract expressionism?)<BR>
<BR>
You know perfectly well that is not what I mean.<BR>
I mean "I like chocolate", "that is like a sofa" and "that is a<BR>
picture of a boa". They don't mean "there ia some chocolate such<BR>
that I like it", "there is some sofa such that that is like it"<BR>
or "there is some boa such that that is a picture of it". To get<BR>
those latter meanings I would have to use {lo} instead of {lo'e}.</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
>><BR>
As I had said repeatedly then, I no longer knew *what* you meant; the various explanations did not jell into any one thing -- except that it should work as you say and that it involved types, which two did not jell in the that terminology.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
I'm not sure why paradigm cases need to be in x1, but here are<BR>
some: {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} "Lions live in Africa",<BR>
which is different from "some lions live in africa" (lo),<BR>
"all lions live in Africa" (ro), "most lions live in Africa" (so'e).<BR>
{lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu", "Cats catch mice", which is<BR>
different from saying that "some cats catch some mice", etc.<BR>
>><BR>
That is just the way the paradigms run; there is obviously nothing special about it except presentation. I would have seen the examples as simply false sentences types. And, even from my new point of view I have trouble with them -- now if I am to separate your {lo'e} from Lojban's, since these seem perfect cases of the latter and imperfect ones (if I now understand it) of the former.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
> Does {lo'e sfofa} refer to the proximate type of<BR>
>sofas? Apparently not. What then does it refer to?<BR>
<BR>
{lo'e sfofa} does not refer. It is like {zi'o} to that extent.<BR>
Even in the most restricted sense of "the typical" it has to<BR>
be like that to make any sense.<BR>
>><BR>
I now understand and agree with the starter here (properly understood -- this may not be the best way to put it "its reference is oblique'). But the reference to {zi'o} is totally misleading, since {zi'o} is a semantic plug, functionally like {se}, for creating new predicates from old. Pointing to "the typical" is better, but that does not work like {zi'o} in any way I can think of and yet makes perfectly good sense in various contexts (different kinds of sense, to be sure, in different contexts)<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>It is obviously not a<BR>
>meaningless expression (or you would not fight so hard about it).<BR>
<BR>
Obviously it has the meaning of {sfofa}. It certainly maintains<BR>
the intension.<BR>
>><BR>
No, it doesn't (if I finally have it right. No, in any case). The sense of {sfofa} is a property, the reference of {sfofa} is a set and neither of these work for {lo'e sfofa}, which (as you just noted) has no reference and, in fact, no sense neither.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
> So, it has<BR>
>a sense, that would pick out something in the world, if there is the<BR>
>appropriate sort of thing in the world.<BR>
<BR>
No, it doesn't pick anything in the world. It just puts to use<BR>
the sense of {sfofa}. It does not get anywhere near the extension.<BR>
>><BR>
I guess it is the locution "puts to use the sense of {sfofa}" that makes this seem a muddle. If {lo'e sfofa} works off the essential properties of {sfofa} as the Lojban version does off the typical ones, then I suppose this is a way of putting it -- though then the examples above are all bad, since they do not deal with essential properties. If only typical properties are involved, then how is it different from the Lojban version?<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>Otherwise it fails to refer, perhaps<BR>
>accidentally, because the world is shy this sort of object.<BR>
<BR>
It intrinsically does not refer, like {zi'o}. But unlike {zi'o}<BR>
it adds some sense to the predicate from which it removes a place.<BR>
So {simsa lo'e sfofa} behaves just like the predicate "x1 is like<BR>
a sofa in property x2". (I suppose {simsa zi'o} would behave like<BR>
"x1 has property x2" maybe.)<BR>
>><BR>
As noted before, the first part here is just what any real sumti does; there is nothing special about {lo'e}. {x simsa la djan y} behaves like the predicate "x is like John in property y." What is special about (lo'e}? It seems to refer somehow else how does it mean (there is a good answer to this, but I haven't seen it in your stuff yet).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
> Since you seem<BR>
>to think that {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is true, the approriate sort of thing<BR>
>must be in the world<BR>
<BR>
No, there is nothing in the world that is a referent of {lo'e sfofa},<BR>
neither in my usage nor in the more restricted definition<BR>
as "the typical".<BR>
>><BR>
?! Your {lo'e} is more general that Lojban's?! Now, even if I have it finally in the right category, I've lost the specifics. I can think of at least four members of this category: the typical (about properties common across the set), the ideal (about properties the members of the set should have), the stereotypical (about properties we think are common across the set), and the average (about averages in whatever sense somebody wants to work them out, so possibly open to several subtypes). But, yes, the references made by {lo'e sfofa} are oblique and {lo'e sfofa} by itself has no referent -- nor, strictly speaking, sense neither.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>(we have disallowed some weeks ago the possibility that<BR>
>some places are inherently opaque [what I used to call intensional before<BR>
>there go to be too many things getting called by that name]<BR>
<BR>
We agree there. The x2 of {simsa} is not inherently opaque.<BR>
It is perfectly possible to say {ta simsa lo sfofa}: "there is<BR>
at least one sofa such that that is like it". Which does not<BR>
make exactly the same claim as {ta simsa lo'e sfofa}.<BR>
>><BR>
Yes, there may not be anything that has just the properties that {lo'e sfofa} puts into the mix. I suspect that that means that the expansions of sentnces containing {lo'e sfofa} turn out to be intensional from top to bottom or at least hypothetical (and that probably amounts to the same thing). Does {mi nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details later) "I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e sfofa}"? [I'm skipping over the question of what to do with liking or being like something that does not exist, which I now see as a separate issue.]<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:<BR>
lo le la<BR>
lo'e le'e ??<BR>
<BR>
But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.<BR>
>><BR>
Cute! But doesn't that require that there be an instance of Santa? I think the text is just unclear on this point (maybe never even brings it usp -- a wise move).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>What the fatal fandango is it? How (in<BR>
>addition) does taking {lo'e sfofa} to refer to the proximate type of lo'i<BR>
>sfofa, take the type (which one?) as a token of types --<BR>
<BR>
Tokens of the class "types" are the things we talk about in<BR>
this meta-discussion. Abstract entities like sets and numbers.<BR>
Not things we want to talk about in ordinary discourse.<BR>
>><BR>
Well, sets and numbers aren't types, but I don't suppose that is what you mean. The quotes here are confusing as is the talking about tokens of a class (types have tokens, classes only have members). I still can't unpack this with any confidence. I guess you mean that we ordinarily talk about ordinary things, even if obliquely, and only in metathery do we talk about abstract things directly. But I am not sure how this comes out of what you actually say (and no amount of adding or removing quotes helps in this one).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>and what does that<BR>
>mean? The proximate type of all the sfofa is, of course, a token of the <BR>
>type<BR>
>type, since it is a type (this gets hairy in practice, but has a variety of<BR>
>solutions).<BR>
<BR>
I talk about sofas, (not about _some_ sofas, not about _each_ sofa,<BR>
not about all the sofas that exist or could exist taken en masse,<BR>
also not about the property of being a sofa, but just about sofas).<BR>
>><BR>
Yes, this fits. Except, of course, that you do talk about all sofas, just not directly -- and ditto the proerty of being a sofa (at least in some cases: I assume that {lo'e sfofa cu sfofa} is trivally true).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>So, as noted earlier, what would be an example of talking about a type?<BR>
<BR>
This whole conversation has been mostly about types and such, not<BR>
about sofas.<BR>
>><BR>
Yeah, but you keep saying that the other is not about sofas, either, though it also is not about types. <BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>Putting {lo'e broda} in first place? Obviously not. Using {li lo'e broda<BR>
>li'u}? Hopefully not. What then?<BR>
<BR>
We don't have a special article for talking about tokens of the<BR>
class "type", of course. It would make no sense to have one.<BR>
It is bad enough that we have a special article to talk about<BR>
tokens of the class "set", something we rarely want to do in<BR>
ordinary conversation.<BR>
>> <BR>
Well, but it would be -- like sets (which we have made reference to quite often in this discussion, not) -- useful for discussion like this. As it turns out, we would not have used the notion of type in this discussion, since the target point was not about tokens and types at all, but about oblique reference (I just made that fairlya ccurate term up on the fly to sort out this case from others that were also intensional in very different ways).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
To talk about types we need a word that means "x1 is a type of<BR>
property x2" or "x1 is a type of set x2" or some such. Maybe {cnano}<BR>
is one such predicate? (Probably it won't always be used in that<BR>
sense.) But then we can talk about le cnano be le ka sfofa, the<BR>
type of class "sofa". I certainly do not want to claim<BR>
{ta simsa le cnano be le ka sfofa} in that sense of {cnano}!<BR>
>><BR>
{cnano} won't work for "type" in any clear way, but it is a good start for I take it what is going on with {lo'e} and kin ("the average" version, anyhow). It gives values not types and it works off the properties too directly. I am -- depite my conviction that Lojban could use a good way to talk about types and tokens -- presently fervently hoping we don't get involved in it for a long time.<BR>
<BR>
</FONT></HTML>
Jorge Llambias
la and cusku di'e
>If you asked me out of the blue how to say "that is a picture of
>a boa", I'd offer {ta pixra lo ka'e sincrboa}, assuming that the
>possible-worlds construal of the ka'e-series cmavo, rather than
>the capability construal. (I.e. {lo ka'e sincrboa} = "that which
>in some world is a boa" & not "that which in this world is
>capable of being a boa".)
I think that works, too, but it doesn't invalidate the other
method.
>I don't see that this would generalize to liking chocolate, but
>I guess I'm wondering whether {lo'e} is being used as a panacea
>to disparate or at least separately soluble problems.
They are separately solvable, English doesn't deal with all
of them in the same way: sometimes it uses "a", sometimes
"the", sometimes the plural.
Maybe we should approach this from a different perspective.
Given {lo'e broda} as a way to insert the intension of {lo'i
broda} into a selbri place, what is the resulting meaning?
This is not the same as saying that the intension becomes
the argument, since I don't want to make a claim about the
intension, le ka ce'u broda.
>I admit I had understood {zu'i} as pc does. If it doesn't
>get used much, it would be because it could generally be
>left implicit (because it's guessable, or insufficiently
>informative). Something like "She smoked hash and he
>smoked zu'i[=tobacco]" would be an example of an unusual
>context where zu'i needs to be explicit.
I had understood that meaning as well until someone suggested
it for generic "one", and it made so much sense to me and
found it so much more useful that I'm trying it out.
>As for the example above, what's wrong with
>
> i fa'a le sirji crane na ku ka'e ku da klama lo'e darno mutce
>= i fa'a le sirji crane da na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
>= i fa'a le sirji crane no mu'ei ku da klama lo'e darno mutce
>= i fa'a le sirji crane da no mu'ei klama lo'e darno mutce
>
>?
It has the quantifier of {da} within the scope of the negation,
so that I can't continue talking about the same "one" in the
next sentence.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
><<
>Anyway, even with nonimporting ro, I don't see how {pa lo su'o}
>differs from {pa lo ro}.
> >>
>My point was exactly: there isn't any any more, once the situation was
>clarified.
There never was a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro},
so "any more" does not apply.
There is a difference between {ro lo su'o} and {ro lo ro} under
nonimporting {ro}, but this has not come up in the present
discussion.
{ro lo ro pavyseljirna cu blabi} is true (in worlds with no unicorns)
with nonimporting {ro}, but false with importing {ro}.
{ro lo su'o pavyseljirna cu blabi} is false (in worlds with no
unicorns) both for importing and nonimporting {ro}.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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py...@aol.com
Sorry if my questions sound too basic: I am just trying to>
follow the discussion and understand the different point of
views, being well aware that my lojban current understanding
may be inapropriate.
>
Thus, some of the presuppostions in play may be non-standard and yet unexpressed (we three have been at this a long long time).
<<
la xorxes cusku di'e>
> To me {da zo'u broda tu'a da} makes
> a different klaim than {broda tu'a da}, where the quantification
> of {da} is within the {tu'a} abstraction. I don't know how
> you can defend the {tu'a} expressions for intensional contexts
> if you don't think so.
{da zo'u broda tu'a da} the {da zo'u} could be freely omitted
{broda tu'a da} could claim a different thing, intensional contexts
agree on redefining this grammar point in intensional contexts.
to be different?
>>
<<
> We can now give a precise definition of {broda} in terms
> of {kairbroda}:
> ko'a broda ko'e = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du ko'e
> ko'a is broda to ko'e = ko'a is broda to something that
> has the property of being ko'e
{du'u ce'u du k'oe} a true property? Or to say it differently,
how do you get a property out of a predication abstraction?
>>
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py...@aol.com
<<
>Yes, lo sincrboa is picturable, but you want a picture of lo'e sincrboa,
>which we can't drag out an look at and compare with the picture.
You don't have to drag it out. All you need is to know what
{sincrboa} means.
>>
In that case, what {sincrboa} means already involves visual properties, the way a boa looks. Serpentine, obviously; scaly, I suppose; I don't know what else is essential ro being whatever kind of boa you have in mind. But, if you mean the genus boa (or wherever boas fall in that scheme of things) some of these properties that are essential to the picture drop out, because they can't be essential (different species of boas do them differently)
<<
>All we have
>to go on in the generic case is the (weighted?) list of properties that
>somehow (still haven't said how) characterize the members of lo'i sincrboa.
Yes, an imaginary list which need not be made explicit. If I tell
you from here, where you can't see me nor the boa, {mi viska lo
sincrboa} you need to know the same list of properties in order
to understand what I mean. If I tell you {mi viska lo'e sincrboa}
you can conclude that either {mi viska lo sincrboa} or else I'm
having visions, but you don't need to know anything else about
boas than what you needed for the claim with {lo}.
{lo'e sincrboa} provides a way to use the intension of
lo'i sincrboa in a sumti slot directly. (Not to make a claim about
the intension of lo'i sincrboa, that's what {le ka sincrboa}
is for.)
>>
I have some idea what your boa is like, but I can't paint a reliable picture of it yet because too many things I need to know to do a picture I don't know from knowing only that it is a boa. Is it basically brown or basically green, for example?
Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa} (this also covers the {lo} case but does not entail it). Why is {lo'e} a no-no? If I can paint it, I can see it surely.
By "the intension of lo'i sincrboa," I suppse you mean "the intension (sense) of {sincrboa}" -- I don't think sets have intensions other than that of the predicates that define them (if any). Now, if you literally mean that you are using just exactly that intensional object, not any other properties that are accidentally associated with it through the things which have that property, I see a major problem with your examples. Either {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le frike} means "if anything were a lion, it would live in Africa," which is obviously false, or it means (I have to unpack some more) "In some world there is something which is a lion and lives in Africa," which is -- in the case of lions, but not of unicorns -- of little practical value over {lo cinfo cu xabju le frike}. (The more unpacked version of the first is "in every world in which there are lions, they all live in Africa" -- i.e., living in Africa is an essential property of lions, a part of being a lion, le du'u ce'u xabju le frike is a part of -- is pervaded by --le du'u ce'u cinfo). The problem with {pixra} is that boahood pervades too few viusal properties to allow a picture to be made, if it is at all representational (and if it is not, anything goes and I have to take your word for what it represents and by what coding, so almost any visual image will do and the whole becomes really uninteresting).
<<
>I think that, in fact, barring the miraculous appearance of a better
>explanation, {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is exactly what {nelci lo'e sfofa}
>means. In what does it differ. DON'T "in that it deals with generic sofas
>not particular ones" since {le nu lo sfofa co'e} doesn't deal with any
>particular sofa either -- that is what intensional contexts do best.
I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas.
I did say it deals with particular events.
>>
OK -- and how can there be a particular event involving sofas that does not invlve a particular sofa?
<<
>suspect that {co'e} is something about lying on 'em or looking at 'em, just
>as {nelci lo'e cakla} = {nelci le nu lo cakla co'e} is about eating 'em.
That other claim may very well be true. But if it is possible to
like a particular sofa without saying that it is doing something
about it that I like, it should also possible to like sofas in
general without saying that it is doing something about them that
I like.
>>
I actually think that {nelci} tends to be moe about {li'i} than {nu}, but I don't suppose that affects your case.
You must have some reason/cause/motive for liking something (I think -- even if you can't articulate it better than "I just do") and that presumably is something that sofas do or are or, perhaps, something that you do or are in the presence of sofas (would do or be were you in the presence of sofas, strictly -- but there are sofas and you like them so the hypothetical fuzzies things a bit here). Maybe it is just the fact that they are sofas. And, if {lo'e sfofa} is about generic sofas, that is about all it could be, since incidentally allied proerties are excluded.
<<
>Nor
>-- your other line -- that it can't be quantified over, since neither can
>{tu'a lo ...} What is different?
For me, liking sofas is different to liking an event. I never
disputed that {tu'a} works as a way to get the quantifier out
of the way, but it also changes the level of abstraction, from
liking sofas to liking things that happen in/with/about/to sofas.
>>
Well, as I said, it is more like liking an experience, which seems less problematic -- not that I see that much problem with liking an event, in the appropriate sense. Perhaps some of our discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is that we read it as "I like the event of there being something about a sofa" rather than "I like something about sofas" which is a better bit of English. You complained about the corresponding translation of {nelci lo'e sfofa} as "like the generic sofa" -- we are (in your terms) using the event, not talking about it.
Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since everything is on the same level in Lojban. And your case is ultimately talking about the properties of a sofa, not about sofas (since you can do it even if there are no sofas to talk about), which does not seem to me to be a different level, only a different kind, of abstraction.
(I expect you to deny this fervently, but lacking a different explanation, I have to go with what works to preserve as much of your claim as I can and this seems to do it, since hypotheticals live off properties, there being no other gudes for them once we cut free from the actual incidental properties of things in the set.(
py...@aol.com
<<
>Sorry, I thought you meant an accurate picture of a generic boa, because,>>
>once you get away from that, it gets hard to keep up the claim that it is a
>pictue of a generic boa rather than something else that it is an accurate
>picture of.
Right. I don't want to claim that there is anything that it is
a picture of. I don't want to make the claim: {da poi ... zo'u
ta pixra da}. Using "generic" as an adjective can be misleading,
as if boas could be divided into generic and non-generic, which
has nothing to do with what we want here. It is a picture of a
boa, but there is no boa such that it is a picture of that boa.
I agree that "generic" might be misleading. Is it your term or mine -- or And's? In any case, can you suggest a better? It seems to be mainly yours (quick Find); I'll go with any emendation you want to make and assume that it is more accurate than "generic."
I assume that it is not (except accidentally) a picture of a possible boa (it may, in fact, be a good likeness of some real boa, but that is irrelevant to its purpose as a picture of lo'e sincrboa).
<<
>But if any old boa picture will do and we call it a picture of a
>generic boa, then, sure, you can picture it.
In English, I call it "a picture of a boa". In Lojban, {lo pixra
be lo'e sincrboa}. The English is a bit ambiguous, as it could
be interpreted as {lo pixra be lo sincrboa}, though that is not
always its most natural interpretation.
>>
In Lojban {lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa} refers to a picture of a typical boa. I don't suppose this gets us much forrader, though a typical boa will probably have specified some properties that a generic (for want of a better word right now) does not. I suppose that, while the English is ambiguous (as it is) and the one we want is vague at best, the Lojban (and yours?) are just vague (that is the Lojban way). The vagueness turns up when we try to figure out what properties really are essential or typical of, in this case, boas. But I think that the right English and so, presumably, your {lo'e} are relatively clear otherwise.
But I do think that the picture case is peculiar and is suspect that that is because the object represented is so often behaving like one in an opaque context already, so to add another opacity on strains one's analytic powers. The first intensionality (don't know how to avoid it) comes just from the fact that what the picture is a picture of is an interpretive matter -- in which the artist (even if he is a photographer) has first rights. That is, Of-ness is a matter of the whir of words that surrounds a picture, not a property of the picture itself.
Now that is a feature of English "picture of." Suppose that {pixra} was designed so that {ti pixra ta} required a (conventional, probably) correlation between properties of ti and those of ta. Then xorxes {ti pixra lo'e broda} would uncomplicatedly be "if a thing were a broda, then ti would be a picture of it," that is, ti would have the properties which correlated with the properties of the hypothetical broda.
It is important to note that both essential properties (what would have to be in the picture for this to work) and the correlation that {pixra} requires, are not a checklist, each member of which has to be 100% present for the requirement (to be a broda, to be a picture of) to be met. More likely, what is involved is a weighted list of quantifiable properties, where the quantity of the property and the weight of the property combine to make a contribution to the final score, which has to reach a certain level to meet the requirement (this all rational-reconstructionist eyewash, of course, but the informal and intuitive version does seem to be what actually goes on).
So, the picture might be a picture of two different broda in slightly different ways, but still up to requirement. For the problematic case I keep dragging around, color probably has a low positive weight -- anything in the browns and greens will do --for a boa, for example. So one boa is pictured with the right color, another with the wrong one, but that doesn't matter enough -- even a colorless boa-picture will do, other conditions being well met. On the other hand, color has a high negative weight -- a neon-blue "boa" with chrome-yellow bands would almost ipso facto NOT be a picture of lo'e sincrboa -- or of lo sincrboa altogether. [I throw in for what it is worth that boas are a family, Boides, with at least the subfamily Pythoninae, and the genera Eunectes and Constrictor. The genus Boa is out of favor, most members having moved to Constrictor -- but this is as of maybe twenty years ago.]
I think that what was described as possible for {pixra} is close to what happens with English "picture of," if we ignore artists (and promoters and the artsy-fartsy generally): Whistler's Study in Black and White is, after all, a pretty good picture of the artist's mother, what ever he says. Of course, this involves a looks-like correlation (not at all natural, for all that) and the case might be harder with non-representational or differently representational (e.g., cubism) conventions or with non-visual subjects (how did Justice come to be represented correctly in our culture by a woman ins classical dress, blindfolded and carrying a sword and a balance?) But the correlations, whatever they may be, need to be present (and may, of course, be totally ad hoc, if the artist or critic forces them on us).
<<
A picture of a boa that swallowed an elephant may look like a
picture of a hat to some people, yes. The relationship "pixra"
is rather subjective. It all depends on the context. If
distinguishing boas from vipers is relevant, then the same
thing won't do as a picture for both.
>>
Right. But a picture of lo'e since would be a picture of both, qua snake, at least.
<<
<<
>It is certainly not a no-no! {lo'e} is probably a yes-yes
>anywhere {lo} is, though neither entails the other.
> >>
I never made that claim. I said that if I told you
{mi viska lo'e sincrboa} you could infer that either mi viska
lo sincrboa or else I'm having visions. So {mi viska lo'e
sincrboa} is perfectly meaningful.
>>
Since this says that {viska lo'e sincrboa} is such that the utterance of it has to be interpreted as on or the other of two totally different claims -- both from it and one another -- I would take that as implying, at least, that it has no meaning of its own. If it did, it would presumably mean that, not imply something totally different. The expression can be used, clearly, but that doesn't mean that it is meaningful in the usual sense.
But, more to the point, you now say that {viska lo'e sincrboa} is meaningful in its own right. What does it mean? Clearly something different from seeing a particular boa, and probably something different from having a vision (? delusion, hallucination, mystical experience of Boa Its Own Self?). If this is a guarantor for the meaningfulness of {pixra lo'e sincrboa}, it fails. I do not either know how to apply the analysis -- which I know you do not agree with -- of {pixra} to this case; the obvious application is clearly totally wrong.
<<
>When looking up "boa," by the way, I did see a picture of one in the
>dictionary, presumably meant to be typical, since it had no further
>specific
>identification.
Do you think there is a boa such that the picture is a picture
of that boa? There could be, I suppose, though whether there is
or not would be fairly irrelevant for most users of the dictionary.
>>
No, and, even if there were, that would be irrelevant to the use for that picture.
<<
>I was just a black-and-white sketch, so avoided the issue of
>color (I don't suppose anyone will thaink that the generic boa is white,
>though boas are in an albino sequence, I think).
Would you say of it {ta pixra lo'e simcrboa}?
>>
With some hesitation (because I don't know what you mean by that), I would say what I mean by that in just that way.
<<
>So {viska lo'e boa} does make sense. Different from {viska lo boa}?
To the extent that it would allow for personal visions, yes.
In normal circumstances, {viska lo'e sincrboa} should require
{viska lo sincrboa}. But this is because of the meaning of
{viska}, not because of the meaning of {lo'e sincrboa}.
>>
What are these personal visions? Is this a literal seeing things? I would say that these would never be of lo'e anything -- they are too ambiguous, too freighted with interpretation -- and too far from seeing -- to make that kind of sense.
I would say that {viska lo sincrboa} requires {viska lo'e sincrboa} as well, since lo'e sincrboa is present when- and where-ever lo sincrboa is, albeit in a slightly different way. For all that, I don't think they are equivalent in meaning, though they may be in extension.
<<
>(For
>either answer, what is special here, since generally they are different and
>generally generics are too abstract to be seen).
The abstract generics that can't be seen are not referred to
here. lo'e sincrboa ka'e se viska, boas can be seen.
>>
Individual boas can be; but does that decide the issue for lo'e sincrboa? If so, how? Notice that {lo'e sincrboa ka'e se viska} is a much easier case than {mi viska lo'e sincrboa} and the analysis of one does not carry over well to the other. Being inherently visible is not the same as actually being seen.
<<
> How do you know that talk about generic lions doesn't involve
>particular lions, at least hypothetical particular lions, unless you know
>fairly completely what talk about genric lions does involve?
I'm certain that talk about lions in general does not involve
talk about particular mosquitoes. I suppose you will agree
with me there, even if we don't know fairly completely
what it does involve. In a similar way, I'm also fairly
certain talk about lions in general does not involve
particular lions, even though I can't express fairly
completely what it does involve. There is no logical
contradiction in being sure that it does not involve something
and not being sure in what it does involve.
>>
Yup. But that still leaves the question of how you know that particular lions ar not involved. Is this simply and intuition? Is it prescriptive -- that you will not accept as giving your meaning anything that involves particulars? Is there some ground, however murky, that supports this claim (hopefully better than "well the general can't be about the particular because the words are opposites")?
<<
Either I'm not hiding any information and I'm just not
capable of explaining myself better, or it is all part
of an evil conspiracy to make you suffer, but I won't
tell you which. :)
Touche' I think the jet lag, which I can't seem to shake, has burned out several of my social filters.
<<
>What would you do
>with a generic sofa -- you can't sit on it or use if for decor (it has no
>color nor pattern nor cushion density).
The use of "generic" as an adjective to translate {lo'e} is
misleading. Sofas of course have color, pattern and cushion density,
even all of them do.
>>
Good, another point for my analysis.
<<
>In short, this seems no different
>from {le nu mi nitcu tu'a lo sfofa cu purci} is it is sensible at all. You
>are, apparently, going to say that it is not right because it involved {lo
>sfofa}
No. I would say it is not equivalent (though it is right on its
own terms) because it involves an event about sofas
>>
Events involving sofas -- claims about them. But {nitcu} doesn't deal with claims and it does involve events essentially, so, whatever {nitcu lo'e sfofa} means, it will involve events, something (but you can't, apparently, say what) that a sofa or the sofas or just sofas do/are.
<<>byt notice that it does not say anything about an particular sofa(s)
>-- even that there are some (well, it says there are some in another world
>but it is hard to deal with essential properties wihtout other worlds, so
>that can't be the problem either.)
Then we agree at least that ther are particular events about sofas
that don't deal with particular sofas.
>>
No, we don't, because I don't think there can be a particular event that does not involve a bunch of particulars -- and them only. The particulars may be in some other word, but no less particulars -- or sofas -- for that. I take {nitcu lo'e sfofa} to be an oblique way of talking about such events, real and hypothetical.
<<
I make a distinction between sofas (lo'e sfofa) and events
involving sofas (tu'a lo sfofa).
>>
So do I. The latter is not a generalization of the same magnitude as the former (I think -- I am prepared to be wrong on this) and probably will work with a much smaller number of properties of sofas being relevant. If I need lo'e sfofa, presumably I need more than a seat or an accessory or ...; I need something that is all of these,s traight through the content of le du'u ce'u sfofa.
<<
When {lo'e sfofa} is used in a sumti place, the resulting
claim is not a claim about any thing that is a sofa.
>>
In the sense that we can meaningfully ask which sofa it is about. So {lo'e sfofa} is something like an intensional use of {sfofa}. Check.
<<
There
is nothing originating from that sumti place that is claimed
to be in a relationship with the sumti in the other places.
>>
I don't get this. It sounds like "the rest of the sentence in which {lo'e sfofa} occurs is irrelevant to what the sentence as a whole means. That can't be what you mean, nor the converse (also a possible reading) : that the meaning of {lo'e sfofa} is irerelevant to what the sentence as a whole means. I guess that this just meand "there is no thing called {lo'e sfofa}. If so, check. But I would say that that place does place some role in relation to the other objects mentioned -- and in the usual way -- by reference to things.
<<
The only contribution from {lo'e sfofa} goes to modify the
selbri,
>>
That is(?) {nitcu lo'e sfofa} means the same as {sfofa nitcu}. Or, more exactly, means the same as a particular reading of that tanru (which one left unspecified). OK, but that doesn't help much, since it can be said of any predicate sumti pair (except that it is often easy to specify which reading is meant).
<<
and the contribution comes purely from the intension/
meaning/sense/whatever of {sfofa}, it does not involve
the corresponding extension.
>>
What else can contribute to the meaning of a sentence? The extension contributes to the event the sentence describes, but not to the meaning, the proposition/claim. So this is nothing special about {lo'e}.
<<
The resulting claim is of a
modified relationship among the remaining sumti.
>>
Again, true of any sumti in any place. What is special about {lo'e} -- other than that it does not have a referent?
<<
><<
>I just don't agree that {mi nelci lo'e sfofa}
>is equivalent to {mi nelci lo nu lo sfofa cu co'e}. They
>are both meaningful, but different.
> >>
If I like doing it on the sofa even though I don't like
sofas, then {mi nelci tu'a lo sfofa} is true, and
{mi nelci lo'e sfofa} is false.
>>
And we know this how? What did we check to be sure of this claim. In the {lo sfofa} case the evidence is clear: there is a replacement for {co'e} that makes the sentence true in detail. But that leaves us with the issue of what "I don't like sofas" means (in parallel with what {mi nelci lo'e sfofa} means. Clearly the English does not mean that I don't like anything about sofas, since they make good places for doing it. It does seem to entail that I don't like any sofas. So the problem is apparently inherent in sofas, something like {ni na nelci le nu lo sfofa cu sfofa} or so. But that is restricted to the present sofas -- might there be a hypothetical sofa that you did like and even like that it was a sofa? No, I assume ("I don't like unicorns" makes perfectly good sense). And so we get back to my analysis. Where was the false step (I'd bet on the move to {le nu lo sfofa cu sfofa}).
<<
>But then, I don't know what {mi
>nelci lo'e sfofa} means.
>>
Well, what does that mean? All of them? Anything that could be a sofa? All the sofas I have met so far? The vast majority of those I have met and can conceive of?
Choice 1 presumably follows and also a fortiori 3 and, in one sense, 4. So the crux is 2 -- and we are back to my analysis.
<<
For me {tu'a lo sfofa} is much more vague.
>>
Does this mean that the range meaning of the {lo'e} case are included in the range of meaning of the {tu'a lo} case? Or just that the one has a wider range, but not neccessarily even overlapping ranges?
Anyhow, do you understand my reading of your {lo'e}? If so, can you say what is wrong with it as a step toward articulating the correct position?
Jorge Llambias
la and cusku di'e
>Let me change the example:
>
>"Humans give birth to live young."
>
>The intended meaning is that this is part of what it is to be
>human; it is an ingredient of humanness.
I think maybe:
lo'e remna cu se jinzi le ka lo'e jmive panzi
cu jbena ce'u zi'o zi'o
As opposed to:
lo'e remna cu se jbena lo'e jmive panzi zi'o zi'o
which describes what happens without saying that this is part
of what it takes to be human.
> > le friko po'o cu se xabju loi cinfo
>
>Not the meaning I was trying to get. I'll just comment (i) that I
>dislike using {po'o} for "only",
The alternatives are all too cumbersome...
>and (ii) that I think you example
>should be {le friko ku po'o}.
Yes, you're right.
>But can it be expanded using a locution involving {tu'o
>du'u ce'u broda}?
Using that and not using {lo'e} or {zu'i} with the related
meaning, I don't think it can.
> > I'm sure there were others, some which you persuaded me
> > to abandon.
>
>This one stands out, not just because it's currently under
>discussion. I actually can't think of anything else, except
>maybe I feel that like everybody else you overuse "le".
I have admitted that {le du'u} and others are not ideal, but
I can't quite bring myself to switching to {tu'o du'u} yet.
Too shocking a change from what I'm used to.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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py...@aol.com
<<
I don't see a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro}. What
am I missing?
>>
<<
First off, let me note that {lo'e} serves as an adequate alternative
or {tu'o} to {lo pa}.
>>
The Lojban {lo'e} might, but in a very twisted way -- the typical member of a class of one is that one member, I suppose (but I bet I could make a case for otherwise without doing much damage). On the other hand, xorxes' {lo'e} (which is now yours as well, you say) will not work, because what is wanted here is a broda, and {lo'e broda} is not one -- or anything else: {lo'e broda} is an improper symbol, making sense only in {... lo'e broda ...} and there dissolving without remainder into an expression in which no part matches this expression. And, in particular it does not, as {tu'o broda} does, allow binding (the inference to {da} -- or from {roda}).
<<
1. {lo pa} is sensitive to negation: whereas {tu'o broda na brode}
is unproblematic, it corresponds to {lo pa broda na ku brode}, not
to scope adds complexity to the mental processing of the sentence.
>>
Actually, CLL never mentions this question in dealing with quantifiers and negation. to be sure, sentences that have the size of the set wrong are called false, but there is also no evidence I could find that that would make the {na} denial true. I think it wore likely that internal quantifiers are ... (I forget the technical term, "filter?" probably not), that is, they are preconditions that must be met for the sentences involving them to be true (I think any sentencewhere this condition is not meant, even the denial of one false for this reason, is false). Lojban has a negation for that situation, {na'i}. So, {lo pa} is likely impervious to {naku} movement, in a way that {pa lo}, for example, is not (compare the case of {lo no} above, though this could just be a problem of internal contradiction: "one or more out of none").
<<
2. {lo pa} makes a claim. I do not wish it to have to be the case
that whenever I talk about a du'u I also claim that there is only
one du'u. If I say {lo pa broda cu brode} I am claiming that
(i) something is broda and brode, and (ii) the cardinality of
lo'i broda is 1. But I want to be able to claim only (i).
>>
<<
3. As I have already shown, the point of marking a singleton
category as a singleton category is to help the speaker and
hearer by signalling the greater logical simplicity. It runs
contrary to general principles of form--function iconicity to
signal simplicity of meaning by adding an extra meaningful word
(pa).
>>
But using a meaningless one (and so strictly dispensible) is OK?
py...@aol.com
> If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
> intension
<snip>
> Some place back in that chocolate pile are some arguments against
> {tu'o} here (or anywhere), but I can't drag them out just now.
I remember seeing some arguments flit by without my having time
to register or digest them. If you can recover them, that would
be good.
>>
The good ones are about -- I find actually looking rather than relying on "memory" -- indirect questions and, more recently, about types and tokens, so only about special cases of abstract predicate, like {du'u ...} I suppose the shortest on is still -- {le}, {lo} and {pa} are all a little shorter and infinitely clearer than {tu'o} and are give the right results -- why make life difficult?
<<
> In
> any case, I think it is finally clear that xorxes' {lo'e ...} is
> different from {le/lo/tu'o/no'o du'u ce'u ...} -- and rather more complex.
I'm not saying I think the two are equivalent. I'm asking how {lo'e
broda cu brode} might be paraphrased using {du'u ce'u} and not
using {lo'e}.
>>
Yes, and I agree with you (assuming that I have a handle on the genral purpose of xorxes {lo'e}) xorxes tends to bristle at any mention of expressons referring to brodahood in the same sentence with discussion of his {lo'e}.
<<
> Is {ce'u da} two terms (as CLL appears to have it) or "lambda x" as
> good ogic would use it? I root for the latter but despair of
> achieving anything with {du'u/ka} anymore.
It's two terms, as per standard Lojban.
>>
Pity.
<<
> But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose
> meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years
> upon years of discussion, should be binned
> >>
> for ever without them. As for nil consensus, some parts of the
> language are just ahrder to master than others -- even for the people
> who invented them (encouraging sign of the language's autonomy).
Even I who purport to be a platonist find this a bit hard to swallow.
-- The idea that these cmavo have autonomous meanings waiting to be
discovered.
>>
Well, a tad dramatic, perhaps. All I meant was that, having laid out a basic notion of what they wanted, the creators can still be surprised by what theat basic notion turns out to entail -- or, as in this case, what is required to make that basic notion actually work in practice. These surprises have been a regular feature of this list since befoe it existed.
<<
I'm all in favour of adding new meanings, new cmavo, etc. to the
language, or of deciding what existing cmavo should mean. What
I meant to say is that in a situation where we feel a need for
a cmavo to express meaning X, and there is in the ma'oste
a cmavo-form Y with no agreed meaning, the attempt to ascribe meaning
X to Y has to overcome the objections of people who think Y has
or should have some other meaning, and this is a waste of effort
when the only outcome that matters is that there be some cmavo
that means X.
>>
While I think that, barring exceptional evidence -- which I sure don't see here -- it is a mistake to add new words until we are sure that what we want is not already covered.
Or, as in this case, I think, that the new notion is useless and better dealt with elsewhere (probably in both partially in standard {lo'e} and partially in discussion of pervasion). But in the process, I think that what standard {lo'e} is about has become clearer than it ever was before -- though still somewhat unsatisfactory (I'd like some rules about expansion). This fits the examples and uses so far and brings them under a meaningful rubric -- which they have previously lacked. (But, on the other hand, no one ever likes my interpretations, so all this is unlikely to fly. And the explanation is itself full of unexplored traps -- hypotheticals and the like. which is why the {lo'e} in the first place.)
<<> la and cusku di'e
>
>
>
> lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko
>
> to say that Africa has lions. I agree that {loi} would work
> just as well here, and so would {lo}.
Fair enough. Let me change the example:
"Humans give birth to live young."
The intended meaning is that this is part of what it is to be
human; it is an ingredient of humanness.
>>
But the new example ought to fit xorxes perfectly, roughly {lo'e remna cu se jbena [lo/lo'e/?] jmive} : "Vivaparosity pervades humanity" "If a human were to give birth, the born would be alive."
<<
> lo'e cinfu cu xabju le friko po'o
>
> Only Africa is inhabited by lions: The lion lives (only) in Africa.
> {loi} and {lo} would not work here due to scope issues. We would
> need to put {le friko po'o} in front of the {su'o} quantifier to
> get the right sense:
>
> le friko po'o cu se xabju loi cinfo
Not the meaning I was trying to get. I'll just comment (i) that I
should be {le friko ku po'o}.
>>
<<
If you asked me out of the blue how to say "that is a picture of
a boa", I'd offer {ta pixra lo ka'e sincrboa}, assuming that the
possible-worlds construal of the ka'e-series cmavo, rather than
the capability construal. (I.e. {lo ka'e sincrboa} = "that which
in some world is a boa" & not "that which in this world is
capable of being a boa".)
>>
Of course, there is also the question of whether {ka'e} can bear the "possible" as opposed to "potential" meaning. CLL waffles, it seems to me, and so does usage (and which level of potentiality or possibility is not very clear either.)
<<
I don't see that this would generalize to liking chocolate, but
I guess I'm wondering whether {lo'e} is being used as a panacea
to disparate or at least separately soluble problems.
>>
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And Rosta
> a.r...@lycos.co.uk writes:
>
> <<
>
> I don't see a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro}. What
> am I missing?
> >>
>
> The {ro}-{su'o} distinction goes back to a time when someone thought
> that {ro}, "every," permitted the case of 0 of the whatsis and {su'o}
> did not. The first part of this turned out to be false in the
> official line (as in Logic), so there is not distinction and we
> cannot meaningfully say {lo broda} if there are no broda, nor {lo no
> broda} neither.
I don't recall that being the official line -- indeed, according
to what I do recall, the official line is what you say it isn't.
Is it in Woldy somewhere?
Anyway, even with nonimporting ro, I don't see how {pa lo su'o}
differs from {pa lo ro}.
> <<
> First off, let me note that {lo'e} serves as an adequate alternative
> to {tu'o}. So I will recapitulate the reasons for preferring {lo'e}
> or {tu'o} to {lo pa}.
> >>
> The Lojban {lo'e} might, but in a very twisted way -- the typical
> member of a class of one is that one member, I suppose (but I bet I
> could make a case for otherwise without doing much damage). On the
> other hand, xorxes' {lo'e} (which is now yours as well, you say)
I think it is inaccurate to speak of "the Lojban {lo'e}" in
distinction to xorxes's and mine. It is not perverse to construe
the ma'oste's gloss of {lo'e} as a clumsy attempt to capture the
notion of generic reference, and what xorxes and I have been doing
is trying to get a handle on generic reference.
> <<
> 1. {lo pa} is sensitive to negation: whereas {tu'o broda na brode}
> is unproblematic, it corresponds to {lo pa broda na ku brode}, not
> to {lo pa broda na brode}. In my view, something that is sensitive
> to scope adds complexity to the mental processing of the sentence.
> >>
> Actually, CLL never mentions this question in dealing with
> quantifiers and negation. to be sure, sentences that have the size
> of the set wrong are called false, but there is also no evidence I
> could find that that would make the {na} denial true. I think it
> wore likely that internal quantifiers are ... (I forget the
> technical term, "filter?" probably not), that is, they are
> preconditions that must be met for the sentences involving them to be
> true (I think any sentencewhere this condition is not meant, even the
> denial of one false for this reason, is false). Lojban has a
> negation for that situation, {na'i}. So, {lo pa} is likely
> impervious to {naku} movement, in a way that {pa lo}, for example, is
> not (compare the case of {lo no} above, though this could just be a
> problem of internal contradiction: "one or more out of none").
You're right that it has not been established whether the inner
quantifier has the status of presupposition/conventional implicature
-- i.e. being outside what is being asserted.
However, since Lojban generally does not (or never, even?) use
presupposition/conventional implicature, the default should
be that the inner cardinality is being asserted. That doesn't
stop anyone adducing arguments as to why this default should be
overridden, though.
> <<
> 2. {lo pa} makes a claim. I do not wish it to have to be the case
> that whenever I talk about a du'u I also claim that there is only
> one du'u. If I say {lo pa broda cu brode} I am claiming that
> (i) something is broda and brode, and (ii) the cardinality of
> lo'i broda is 1. But I want to be able to claim only (i).
> >>
> What is the fate of {tu'o broda} if there are moe than one broda?
> Will every sentence containing the expression be false or only those
> outside the scope of a {naku}? If the former, then it is exactly on
> a par with {lo pa}. If the latter, then IT is the one making an
> additional claim.
If there are more than one broda then {tu'o broda} is ambiguous
-- it is underspecified, and to form an interpretation the hearer
will have to insert a quantifier. The same goes for when there is
only one broda. In other words, {tu'o broda} is neither true
nor false, because it expresses an incomplete logical formula.
> <<
> 3. As I have already shown, the point of marking a singleton
> category as a singleton category is to help the speaker and
> hearer by signalling the greater logical simplicity. It runs
> contrary to general principles of form--function iconicity to
> signal simplicity of meaning by adding an extra meaningful word
> (pa).
> >>
> But using a meaningless one (and so strictly dispensible) is OK?
Yes. It is indispensible because the syntax requires a gadri or
quantifier to be present at the start of a sumti. Ideally it
would be possible to omit tu'o, but the syntax won't allow it;
it's very much analogous to the use of dummy _there_ and _it_
in English to fill obligatory subject positions.
--And.
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And Rosta
> la pycyn cusku di'e
>
> ><<
> > > inherent property, nor any property, of boas. It only gives a
> > > property of ta.
> > > >>
> >No it gives a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa on the surface.
>
> But only on the surface. Since {lo'e sincrboa} is not a referring
> term, talking of "a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa" doesn't
> mean much, because it suggests that there are two things being
> related, which is not the case. There is only one thing, ta, and
> something is predicated of that thing.
If you asked me out of the blue how to say "that is a picture of
a boa", I'd offer {ta pixra lo ka'e sincrboa}, assuming that the
possible-worlds construal of the ka'e-series cmavo, rather than
the capability construal. (I.e. {lo ka'e sincrboa} = "that which
in some world is a boa" & not "that which in this world is
capable of being a boa".)
I don't see that this would generalize to liking chocolate, but
I guess I'm wondering whether {lo'e} is being used as a panacea
to disparate or at least separately soluble problems.
> >{zu'i} doesn't mean "the typical value in this context," it is just
> >replaced
> >by the typical value in this context.
>
> Well... I have never seen it in use, so I have started using it
> to translate generic "one", as in:
>
> i fa'a le sirji crane zu'i na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
> Droit devant soi on ne peut pas aller bien loin...
> (Going straight ahead, one can't go very far...)
>
> That of course is not meant to be replaced by a typical value.
> (This, BTW, was not my idea. Someone else suggested it on the
> wiki, and it certainly fits with my use of {lo'e}.)
I admit I had understood {zu'i} as pc does. If it doesn't
get used much, it would be because it could generally be
left implicit (because it's guessable, or insufficiently
informative). Something like "She smoked hash and he
smoked zu'i[=tobacco]" would be an example of an unusual
context where zu'i needs to be explicit.
As for the example above, what's wrong with
i fa'a le sirji crane na ku ka'e ku da klama lo'e darno mutce
= i fa'a le sirji crane da na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
= i fa'a le sirji crane no mu'ei ku da klama lo'e darno mutce
= i fa'a le sirji crane da no mu'ei klama lo'e darno mutce
?
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Jorge Llambias
la and cusku di'e
>Is {tu'a da} a cover for {tu'o du'u da zo'u ce'u co'e da}? That is the
>crux, and I think we all want the answer to be Yes.
We all want that as far as where the quantifier goes, I'm sure
about that.
But in general, {tu'a da} is a cover for any of:
{tu'o du'u da zo'u ce'u co'e da}
{tu'o du'u da zo'u co'e da}
{tu'o? nu da zo'u co'e da}
and possibly others. Which one it is depends on where it is used.
It's a du'u in a place that accepts {du'u}s, a nu in a place that
accepts {nu}s.
>BTW, are you actually proposing locutions like {nelci tu'a lo cakla},
>{nelci tu'o du'u ce'u co'e lo cakla}? To me, those don't mean the
>same thing as "I like chocolate".
I don't think he was proposing that. In this case, x2 of nelci
accepts {nu}s, not {du'u}s, so it means {nelci ?? nu co'e lo cakla}.
(I think ?? = {tu'o} or equivalently {lo'e}.)
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
#jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
#<<
#>Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa}
#
#I suppose you mean {se li'i}, "I'm a visual experiencer of
#something being a boa".
#>>
#No, I meant {li'i} though I left out the {le} . Apparently the meaning has
#changed since the word was created by someone who lived primarily in a
#disembodied experiental mode.
It hasn't changed its meaning AFAIK. It's just that "viska lo li'i" means
"see an experience", not "have an experience of seeing". That doesn't
mean there's no way to say "have the experience of seeing", though.
#<<
#>Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since
#>everything is on the same level in Lojban.
#
#I think {fasnu} and {dacti} are not synonymous. To that extent
#at least nu-things are not at the same level as sofa-things.
#>>
#{mlatu} and {gerku} aren't synonymous either -- which is on the higher level
#of abstaction?
IMO, the Lojban technical term "abstraction" is primarily grammatical
rather than semantic -- an event is indeed no more abstract than
a participant in an event. So really "abstraction" just means "selmaho
NU". {tu'a ko'a} is therefore an abbreviation for {le su'u ko'a co'e},
no more and no less.
--And.
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And Rosta
> And:
> > > err, but then I can use {pa broda} which the book says is syntactically
> > > the same as {lo pa broda},
> >
> > This is incorrect. {pa broda} = {pa lo su'o broda}.
>
> Sorry I made a mistake, but I also disagree.
> {pa broda} is actually the same as {pa lo ro broda} which can be simplified
> in {pa lo broda}.
I don't see a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro}. What
am I missing?
> Note that {pa broda} is nonetheless still the same in
> our case than {tu'o broda}.
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here.
>
> > > Why not indicate your reader clearly that exactly one thing satisfy
> > > the description if it is indeed the case? This will relieve the reader
> to
> > > draw that eventually needed conclusion from the use of {tu'a}.
> >
> > You mean {tu'o}? The reasons are those I gave in the message you are
> > replying to.
>
> I indeed meant {tu'o} sorry. IMO Your reasons put a burden on your reader
> without any obvious advantage.
The advantages I've spelt out already. The burden is only for learners
encountering the usage for the first time. Thereafter there is no
burden.
> > There is a difference between claiming something and implying something.
> > This shows up, for example, if the whole sentence is negated.
>
> Of course, but that is not the point. The point is that to understand fully
> the sumti I will need the result of the implication. Why then introduce a
> new quantifier when the same effect, that is a correct interpretation of
> the referent by your reader, could be obtain with {pa}?
First off, let me note that {lo'e} serves as an adequate alternative
to {tu'o}. So I will recapitulate the reasons for preferring {lo'e}
or {tu'o} to {lo pa}.
1. {lo pa} is sensitive to negation: whereas {tu'o broda na brode}
is unproblematic, it corresponds to {lo pa broda na ku brode}, not
to {lo pa broda na brode}. In my view, something that is sensitive
to scope adds complexity to the mental processing of the sentence.
2. {lo pa} makes a claim. I do not wish it to have to be the case
that whenever I talk about a du'u I also claim that there is only
one du'u. If I say {lo pa broda cu brode} I am claiming that
(i) something is broda and brode, and (ii) the cardinality of
lo'i broda is 1. But I want to be able to claim only (i).
3. As I have already shown, the point of marking a singleton
category as a singleton category is to help the speaker and
hearer by signalling the greater logical simplicity. It runs
contrary to general principles of form--function iconicity to
signal simplicity of meaning by adding an extra meaningful word
(pa).
--And.
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<<
No, I don't think so. {ta pixra lo'e sincrboa} does not give an>>
inherent property, nor any property, of boas. It only gives a
property of ta.
<<
I don't think {lo'e cakla} involves directly any property other
than {le ka ce'u cakla}. What exactly that property is has to do
with the meaning/intension/whatever of {cakla}. I don't think
there is any need to look for any other properties to understand
{lo'e}. Only that one property is relevant.
>>
Well, in the case of {nelci}, I agree. But {pixra lo'e sincrboa} behaves differently and her we have to come up with some other properties, since the property of being a boa, as such, is not picturable. We have to go inside and see what that means in visual terms.
<<
For me {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} does not preclude lions
living in other places. As And pointed out, it is a claim about
Africa: it's inhabited by lions. That's all. If it fails, it is
because Africa is inhabited by many other creatures as well as
lions, not because lions may also inhabit other places. It all
depends on the semantics of xabju: is x1 supposed to be for the
main inhabitant(s) of x2? If not, then there is no problem with
the claim.
>>
Let me put it another way. Your claim is, I gather, meant to be a different claim from {lo cinfo cu xabju le frika}, which clearly makes no claim about lions not living (even natively) elsewhere (it doesn't even claim that they live natively in Africa, come to think of it). The Lojban interpretation makes this a typical fact about members of the set of lions: typically, if something were a member of that set, it would live in Africa -- which is clearly different from the {lo} version (it doesn't claim there are lions for one thing) but also makes not claim about whether there are lions elsewhere. {xabju} says nothing about main or sole inhabitants. But what does you {lo'e} say? At the moment it seems indistinguishable from the Lojban bversions -- unless it is jjust {lo} "without the quantification," whatever that might mean.
<<
As long as nobody is tempted to translate it as {mi nelci ro da
poi ...}.
>>
I have been careful, I hope, to put it in the subjunctive to prevent that. My question is now "what preoperties are delimited by your {lo'e sfofa} . If nothing beyond being a sofa, then this is just {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} and as uninteresting as cases where it amounts to nothing more than {lo sfofa}.
<<Actually, we may have something in Lojban for that:
lo broda = da poi broda
lo'e broda = zu'i poi broda
Yes, I think that could work.
>>
Pardon? One can poi onto {zu'i}, I suppose, but I don't see why one would. {zu'i} doesn't mean "the typical value in this context," it is just replaced by the typical value in this context. In addition, {zu'i [poi broda]} is bindable to {da}, against your notion of {lo'e} and certainly against what I was about in the previous sentences.
<<
>Notice that this sentence is to explain {lo'e},
>so {lo'e} has no place in it -- its components have been spread over the
>whole sentence. {lo'e broda} is ultimately an improper symbol in Russell's
>sense -- when the semantics are laid out, there is nothing to correspond to
>that symbol, but the whole sentence works.
>>
{zi'o} is not, in the appropriate sense, a symbol at all: it merely marks a different, though related, predicate. {zu'i} is perfectly normal: in the clarification it would appear intact as a reference to the usual referent in that context.
We seem to be approaching an understanding here -- asymptotically, since you are still flying off in various directions -- but we still need a statement of what {lo'e} means, how it specifies the proerties of members of the set which ar relevant.
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In a message dated 9/11/2002 6:43:50 PM Central Daylight Time,
jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
<<
> Very considerate of you, but {xorban} means "Croatian language"
> in..., well in what you call Xorban.
>>
Oops! sorry (but ought I have known?)
<<
>What does "use an intension" mean? What can you do with them?
I say things like: {mi nelci lo'e cakla}, {ta simsa lo'e sfofa},
{ta pixra lo'e sincrboa}.
>>
These seem to me to be paradigm cases (well, not quite, since none of them
has {lo'e ...} as first argument) of talking about lo'e ..., which is an
intension (in some sense or other -- I am not at all such which), isn't it?
You say you like it or that that is like it or that is a picture of it (a
notion I have a lot of trouble with -- abstract expressionism?)
<<
>{le du'u ce'u
>broda} refers to a property (or some properties, of course), using the
>expression is a way of talking about that property.
Right. But in those cases I am not talking about properties. I'm
not saying that I like some property, that that is like some
property or a picture of some property.
>>
Which cases? {mi nelci lo'e ...} or {mi nelci le du'u ce'u ...}? I gather
the former, from which I infer that lo'e ... is not a property. But then, I
didn't think it was: it's a type, right? So, in those cases you are talking
about a type. How is that using the type? Or, if that is what you mean by
"using the type," what would be a case of talking about the type?
<<
>(but I can't figure out how to say, fairly literally "it has the
>property of being broda" in Lojban -- nor Xorban, for that matter).
What's wrong with: {ta ckaci le ka ce'u broda}?
>>
Not a thing that I can see ({ka} aside). I just was looking the wrong way to
find it. Thanks.
<<
>{lo ...} always refers to things in the reference class of {...}, the
>extension of {...}. Whether lo ... (the thing(s), not the expression) is
>extensional or not depends upon what sort of things are referred to by
>{...}.
I think we're blocked here. For me every set {lo'i broda} has
an extension, and {lo broda} always picks from that extension.
>>
By George, it is -- at least partly -- use-mention! {lo'i broda} is not a
set, it is an expression that refers to a set, lo'i broda, which contains all
and only the broda. That expression does have an extension, the set (of
course) and {lo broda} refers to members of that set. Maybe running
everything through this mill will give a bit more clarity.
<<
>(I do wish you'd use {du'u}
>after all the work we went through to get it straightened out)
Only you seem to think that the outcome of that discussion was
that {ka} should not be used. The way I understood it is that
{ka ce'u broda} is equivalent to {du'u ce'u broda}, but {ka} and
{du'u} differ in their defaults: {ka broda} necessarily has at
least one implicit {ce'u} and {du'u broda} necessarily has no
implicit {ce'u}.
>>
During that overly extended discussion, I proposed half-a-dozen ways to deal
with word for properties (including the one you suggest). The only one that
survived without significant criticism -- and that actually got used -- was
this one: properties with {du'u} and {ce'u}, {ka} for the qualitative analog
of {ni}. This is clearly unzipfy to the max, but it does account for most of
the CLL usage and the logic of the situation. And, of course, no one does it
that way -- or any other way consistently. Well, education is part of the
role of this list.
<<
>A place that requires ... tokens is presumably filled by using {lo ...} --
>isn't that what you just said? Is there a place -- in Lojban -- that
>requires being filled by ... types? I couldn't find any.
I can't think of any place that requires types. I can think of
plenty that accept types.
>>
Well, in the sense that many Lojban expressions are ambiguous among tokens
and types of various levels, this is true. And it would be nice to be able
to break that ambiguity a bit. (I see I am slipping, too: for "by ... types"
read expressions referring to ... types." I don't think it confused either
of us, but we can't be too careful at this point.)
<<
<<
> ta simlu le ka ce'u sfofa
> That appears to have the property of being a sofa.
>
> ta simsa lo'e sfofa
> That is like a sofa.
>
> >>
>
>For the same reason, {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is false (in your
>usage, where {lo'e sfofa} refers to the proximate type of sofas --
No, that's not my usage. I would have thought the English gloss
might have shown that. {lo'e sfofa} does not refer to a type
in my usage, that would be taking the type as a token of types, and
I don't do that. I use the type as a type, not to talk about types.
>>
This is totally opaque. Does {lo'e sfofa} refer to the proximate type of
sofas? Apparently not. What then does it refer to? It is obviously not a
meaningless expression (or you would not fight so hard about it). So, it has
a sense, that would pick out something in the world, if there is the
appropriate sort of thing in the world. Otherwise it fails to refer, perhaps
accidentally, because the world is shy this sort of object. Since you seem
to think that {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is true, the approriate sort of thing
must be in the world (we have disallowed some weeks ago the possibility that
some places are inherently opaque [what I used to call intensional before
there go to be too many things getting called by that name] -- though this
would be a good candidate, since something can clearly be like something that
does not exist -- e.g. fat men with white beards are like Santa Claus [but
that is another whole story]). What the fatal fandango is it? How (in
addition) does taking {lo'e sfofa} to refer to the proximate type of lo'i
sfofa, take the type (which one?) as a token of types -- and what does that
mean? The proximate type of all the sfofa is, of course, a token of the type
type, since it is a type (this gets hairy in practice, but has a variety of
solutions). It is also a token of the furniture type and the physical object
type and so on. So, there is no "taking" here, things just are that way.
But I suspect that none of this is what you mean. Though what that is seems
to come back to using, not talking about, and that was what I hoped this
section was goiing to clarify rather than circle back to.
<<
>have I got
>that right, at least?)
You knew I couldn't possibly mean that.
>>
On the contrary, everything you said at the beginning of this discussion,
before it became totally unintelligible, forced me to that point. I rather
think that I could find you saying "{lo'e broda} stands for the type of
broda" or something very like it, when you were insisting only that it did not
mean "the typical broda."
<<
>if {ta} refers to a piece of furniture, but could be
>true if {ta} referred to another type or maybe even a property. But all of
>this is still talking about the type. What is an example (by you) of using
>it?
That was meant as an example of using it, not talking about it.
>>
So, as noted earlier, what would be an example of talking about a type?
Putting {lo'e broda} in first place? Obviously not. Using {li lo'e broda
li'u}? Hopefully not. What then?
--part1_60.25e0c2d2.2ab29c39_boundary
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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2>In a message dated 9/11/2002 6:43:50 PM Central Daylight Time, jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Very considerate of you, but {xorban} means "Croatian language"<BR>
in..., well in what you call Xorban.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
>><BR>
Oops! sorry (but ought I have known?)<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">>What does "use an intension" mean? What can you do with them?<BR>
<BR>
I say things like: {mi nelci lo'e cakla}, {ta simsa lo'e sfofa},<BR>
{ta pixra lo'e sincrboa}.<BR>
>><BR>
These seem to me to be paradigm cases (well, not quite, since none of them has {lo'e ...} as first argument) of talking about lo'e ..., which is an intension (in some sense or other -- I am not at all such which), isn't it? You say you like it or that that is like it or that is a picture of it (a notion I have a lot of trouble with -- abstract expressionism?)<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>{le du'u ce'u<BR>
>broda} refers to a property (or some properties, of course), using the<BR>
>expression is a way of talking about that property.<BR>
<BR>
Right. But in those cases I am not talking about properties. I'm<BR>
not saying that I like some property, that that is like some<BR>
property or a picture of some property.<BR>
>><BR>
Which cases? {mi nelci lo'e ...} or {mi nelci le du'u ce'u ...}? I gather the former, from which I infer that lo'e ... is not a property. But then, I didn't think it was: it's a type, right? So, in those cases you are talking about a type. How is that using the type? Or, if that is what you mean by "using the type," what would be a case of talking about the type?<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>(but I can't figure out how to say, fairly literally "it has the<BR>
>property of being broda" in Lojban -- nor Xorban, for that matter).<BR>
<BR>
What's wrong with: {ta ckaci le ka ce'u broda}?<BR>
>><BR>
Not a thing that I can see ({ka} aside). I just was looking the wrong way to find it. Thanks.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>{lo ...} always refers to things in the reference class of {...}, the<BR>
>extension of {...}. Whether lo ... (the thing(s), not the expression) is<BR>
>extensional or not depends upon what sort of things are referred to by <BR>
>{...}.<BR>
<BR>
I think we're blocked here. For me every set {lo'i broda} has<BR>
an extension, and {lo broda} always picks from that extension.<BR>
>><BR>
By George, it is -- at least partly -- use-mention! {lo'i broda} is not a set, it is an expression that refers to a set, lo'i broda, which contains all and only the broda. That expression does have an extension, the set (of course) and {lo broda} refers to members of that set. Maybe running everything through this mill will give a bit more clarity.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>(I do wish you'd use {du'u}<BR>
>after all the work we went through to get it straightened out)<BR>
<BR>
Only you seem to think that the outcome of that discussion was<BR>
that {ka} should not be used. The way I understood it is that<BR>
{ka ce'u broda} is equivalent to {du'u ce'u broda}, but {ka} and<BR>
{du'u} differ in their defaults: {ka broda} necessarily has at<BR>
least one implicit {ce'u} and {du'u broda} necessarily has no<BR>
implicit {ce'u}.<BR>
>><BR>
During that overly extended discussion, I proposed half-a-dozen ways to deal with word for properties (including the one you suggest). The only one that survived without significant criticism -- and that actually got used -- was this one: properties with {du'u} and {ce'u}, {ka} for the qualitative analog of {ni}. This is clearly unzipfy to the max, but it does account for most of the CLL usage and the logic of the situation. And, of course, no one does it that way -- or any other way consistently. Well, education is part of the role of this list.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>A place that requires ... tokens is presumably filled by using {lo ...} --<BR>
>isn't that what you just said? Is there a place -- in Lojban -- that<BR>
>requires being filled by ... types? I couldn't find any.<BR>
<BR>
I can't think of any place that requires types. I can think of<BR>
plenty that accept types.<BR>
>><BR>
Well, in the sense that many Lojban expressions are ambiguous among tokens and types of various levels, this is true. And it would be nice to be able to break that ambiguity a bit. (I see I am slipping, too: for "by ... types" read expressions referring to ... types." I don't think it confused either of us, but we can't be too careful at this point.)<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
<<<BR>
> ta simlu le ka ce'u sfofa<BR>
> That appears to have the property of being a sofa.<BR>
><BR>
> ta simsa lo'e sfofa<BR>
> That is like a sofa.<BR>
><BR>
> >><BR>
><BR>
>For the same reason, {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is false (in your<BR>
>usage, where {lo'e sfofa} refers to the proximate type of sofas --<BR>
<BR>
No, that's not my usage. I would have thought the English gloss<BR>
might have shown that. {lo'e sfofa} does not refer to a type<BR>
in my usage, that would be taking the type as a token of types, and<BR>
I don't do that. I use the type as a type, not to talk about types.<BR>
>><BR>
This is totally opaque. Does {lo'e sfofa} refer to the proximate type of sofas? Apparently not. What then does it refer to? It is obviously not a meaningless expression (or you would not fight so hard about it). So, it has a sense, that would pick out something in the world, if there is the appropriate sort of thing in the world. Otherwise it fails to refer, perhaps accidentally, because the world is shy this sort of object. Since you seem to think that {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is true, the approriate sort of thing must be in the world (we have disallowed some weeks ago the possibility that some places are inherently opaque [what I used to call intensional before there go to be too many things getting called by that name] -- though this would be a good candidate, since something can clearly be like something that does not exist -- e.g. fat men with white beards are like Santa Claus [but that is another whole story]). What the fatal fandango is it? How (in addition) does taking {lo'e sfofa} to refer to the proximate type of lo'i sfofa, take the type (which one?) as a token of types -- and what does that mean? The proximate type of all the sfofa is, of course, a token of the type type, since it is a type (this gets hairy in practice, but has a variety of solutions). It is also a token of the furniture type and the physical object type and so on. So, there is no "taking" here, things just are that way. But I suspect that none of this is what you mean. Though what that is seems to come back to using, not talking about, and that was what I hoped this section was goiing to clarify rather than circle back to.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>have I got<BR>
>that right, at least?)<BR>
<BR>
You knew I couldn't possibly mean that.<BR>
>><BR>
On the contrary, everything you said at the beginning of this discussion, before it became totally unintelligible, forced me to that point. I rather think that I could find you saying "{lo'e broda} stands for the type of broda" or something very like it, when you were insisting only that it did not mean "the typical broda."<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
>if {ta} refers to a piece of furniture, but could be<BR>
>true if {ta} referred to another type or maybe even a property. But all of<BR>
>this is still talking about the type. What is an example (by you) of using<BR>
>it?<BR>
<BR>
That was meant as an example of using it, not talking about it.<BR>
>><BR>
So, as noted earlier, what would be an example of talking about a type? Putting {lo'e broda} in first place? Obviously not. Using {li lo'e broda li'u}? Hopefully not. What then?<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
</FONT></HTML>
And Rosta
> Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i
> sincrboa}
Is that {mi viska se li'i (zo'e) sincrboa}? -- Which is okay,
though it'd be nice to be able to do it without resorting to
tanru. Or is it {mi viska lo li'i sincrboa}? -- Which would mean
seeing an experience -- not really what is wanted.
--And.
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Lionel Vidal
> > err, but then I can use {pa broda} which the book says is syntactically
> > the same as {lo pa broda},
>
> This is incorrect. {pa broda} = {pa lo su'o broda}.
Sorry I made a mistake, but I also disagree.
{pa broda} is actually the same as {pa lo ro broda} which can be simplified
in {pa lo broda}. Note that {pa broda} is nonetheless still the same in
our case than {tu'o broda}.
> > Why not indicate your reader clearly that exactly one thing satisfy
> > the description if it is indeed the case? This will relieve the reader
to
> > draw that eventually needed conclusion from the use of {tu'a}.
>
> You mean {tu'o}? The reasons are those I gave in the message you are
> replying to.
I indeed meant {tu'o} sorry. IMO Your reasons put a burden on your reader
without any obvious advantage.
> There is a difference between claiming something and implying something.
> This shows up, for example, if the whole sentence is negated.
Of course, but that is not the point. The point is that to understand fully
the sumti I will need the result of the implication. Why then introduce a
new quantifier when the same effect, that is a correct interpretation of
the referent by your reader, could be obtain with {pa}?
mu'omi'e lioNEL
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And Rosta
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 08:32:42PM +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > {lo ka'e pavyseljirna cu blabi} or else {lo su'o mu'ei pavyseljirna
> > cu blabi} is true (according to my beliefs). {lo ca'a pavysljirna
> > cu blabi} is false.
>
> I read "lo ka'e pavyseljirna" as "something(s) which have the (innate)
> capability of being unicorns," and I don't think they exist either.
> If you want to talk of unicorns, I think you either move (implicitly or
> explicitly) into a world where there are unicorns simpliciter, or else
> you have to go meta and talk of concepts of unicorns, statements about
> unicorns, or whatever.
That's why I offered the {su'o mu'ei} alternative. There is inconsistency
in the definition of {ka'e} & co, between the "is capable of being"
and "in some possible world is". (Basically, the capability story is
the usual one, but the possible story is used when nu is involved.)
--And.
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py...@aol.com
<<
>I don't see that this would generalize to liking chocolate, but
>I guess I'm wondering whether {lo'e} is being used as a panacea
>to disparate or at least separately soluble problems.
of them in the same way: sometimes it uses "a", sometimes
"the", sometimes the plural.
Maybe we should approach this from a different perspective.
Given {lo'e broda} as a way to insert the intension of {lo'i
broda} into a selbri place, what is the resulting meaning?
This is not the same as saying that the intension becomes
the argument, since I don't want to make a claim about the
intension, le ka ce'u broda.
>>
the sense of {lo'i broda}, "being a set whose members are exactly the broda" doesn't (I hope!) play any role here at all. I suppose yet once again this is (by two leaps this time), the sense of {broda}. Intensions can't go in sumti places because intensions are not words in any language. And we have already removed the possibility that what goes into the sumti place is an expression referring to that intension -- and do so again (as cofusedly) in the next sentence.
We are left with what I take to be true and also what xorxes is trying to say regardless of how often he rejects it: {lo'e broda} for xorxes is like {lo'e broda} in Lojban in that it signals a complex hypothetical claim that relies on le du'u ce'u broda and says something about the members of lo'i broda. In xorxes' case (barring the not yet forthcoming better story) it says what the essential features are, in Lojban what the typical features are. The exact form of the hypothetical here hidden varies with the role {lo'e broda} plays in the sentence and what the other components of the sentence are -- working it ouit in each case is, so far, an art rather than a cience, but an art that we generally are pretty good at (though not, perhaps, at formulating our analyses).
<<
>As for the example above, what's wrong with
>
> i fa'a le sirji crane na ku ka'e ku da klama lo'e darno mutce
>= i fa'a le sirji crane da na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
>= i fa'a le sirji crane no mu'ei ku da klama lo'e darno mutce
>= i fa'a le sirji crane da no mu'ei klama lo'e darno mutce
>
>?
so that I can't continue talking about the same "one" in the
next sentence
>>
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<<
I think it's erroneous to talk of "non-representational painting", a painting
being essentially a representation, though not perhaps of anything we can see.
"Non-objective painting" might be more appropriate. If a painting weren't
a representation, it would be what Mark Twain said Whistler's painting was:
a canvas covered with smears of tomato juice (or something to that effect).
>>
Yup. I had "non-looks-like" at one point, but that is too narrow (since cubism fails but is intended to be representational in the usual usage. My favorite story in art-fiction (hey, if you can have science -) is of a world where all physical characteristic and personaliyt types, etc. were coded into colored, shaped patches. A dossier on a person done in this form would be representational in the key meaning I want, but it would be odd (as happens in the story) for a police officer to shoot such a dossier of a bankrobber when he sees it in a bank. The problem is that the dossier is not representational in the common sense, though it is, strictly speaking.
py...@aol.com
<<
>tu'o du'u ce'u kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode kei du tu'o ce'u broda da poi>
>ckaji tu'o du'u ce'u brode
(I think you're missing a {kei}, or just use {cu du} to make
it simpler.) But that is not the {kairbroda} I was using!
>
(I do indeed need another {kei} or a {cu}
Gee, I thought I was just symbolizing what you said in English. What did I translate wrong -- or you mistate in English.
<<
><<
>And {kairbroda} is an ordinary jvajvo from {ckaji broda}, with
>place structure b1 (b2=c1) c2 b3 b4 b5 ...
> >>
>An ordinary jvajvo with an extraordinary semantics: (b2=c1) is dropped (not
>unusual) but plays an active role -- and is quantified to boot.
Only in your version, not in mine. In my version (b2=c1) plays
no active role and the lujvo has ordinary semantics. (It has no
problems with negations for example, as I suspect yours might.)
>>
As Oz the Great and Powerful said (in the movie at least) "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" But it is what makes the whole thing run.
Well, I'm not too sure what negation might do to your {lo'e}, it works about te way I would expect in my analysis.
I skip over the {sisku} stuff, since I wouldn't hang anything on how {sisku}. The change was needed, but the way chosen was not the ideal one; other changes went better. I note that your examples with {pavyseljirna} for {santo}, are also simple but generally wrong.
<<
>Some minor proofs, using real lambdas this time -- the {ce'u}s are a pain..
>kairbroda is \x \z(Ey(x broda y & y ckaji z)
Not my {kairbroda}! I must have:
broda is \x \y(x kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u = y)
which doesn't work with your {kairbroda}.
>>
Actually, it does: put my {kairbroda} into your {broda} or your {broda} into my Kairbroda} and simplify.
<<
>a broda loe' brode = [...] = a broda lo brode.
My definition of {lo'e} given in terms of my {kairbroda} does
not work with your definition of {kairbroda}, of course. That's
not surprising.
>>
Since they are the same when all is said and done, it works fine and {lo'e broda} (yours) = {lo broda} (Lojban's).
G. Dyke
>
> If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can
> be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
> resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
> cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
> seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
> though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
> express adequately in Lojban.
>
I think I've gotten my head round what xorxes means (I just have to hear him
on le'e, and once more on how each gadri affects selma'o KA and I'll be able
to write Croatian lojban). I can now move on to trying to understand someone
else means as a preparation to finding out whether I can make any sense of
what pc says.
I can see two distinctions between "Africa is lion-inhabited" and "The
[generic] lion lives in Africa", one of them is English gloss, inhabited
having a slightly different connotation (in particular I see inhabitants as
lois and not lo'es), the other is focus, the first on Africa, the second on
Lions. What I don't see is why both of these shouldn't equally be lo'e
cinfo, both in CLL and Croatian (OK, I'll stop this xorban business now)
> If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
> intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
> meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
> just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
> as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
>
> Excuse my having read this previous thread in only a desultory
> way -- I read your summary postings assiduously, but keeping
> track of the debates with pc I find very wearing.
>
> > Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:
> > lo le la
> > lo'e le'e ??
> >
> > But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.
>
> If you really wanted to fill the gap you could pick a spare
> cmavo -- {lai'e}, say.
>
> But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose
> meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years
> upon years of discussion, should be binned.
>
> A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
> the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
> instead.
Do you not agree that for all purposes, I like chocolat is {mi nelci lo'e
xekri cakla} (I don't call the other colors chocolat, more like "yeuwk")?
mu'o mi'e greg
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>{x simsa la djan y} behaves like the
>predicate "x is like John in property y." What is special about (lo'e}?
{lo'e broda} is special in that it does not instantiate {da}.
{broda lo'e brode} does not logically entail {broda da}, the
way {broda la djan} does. In this respect it is like {broda
zi'o} which also does not entail {broda da}.
"I like sofas, but there's just no sofa that I like",
while contradictory at some psychological level, is not
logically contradictory.
>?! Your {lo'e} is more general that Lojban's?!
If {nelci lo'e cakla} were restricted to liking some particular
kind of chocolate, (ordinary, was it?) then yes, my {lo'e}
is more general, as it's only about chocolate, not about
typical chocolate, ordinary chocolate or any other restriction
on the concept of chocolate.
>Does {mi
>nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details later)
>"I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e sfofa}"?
If your "anything" there is not a {da}, ok. But we don't have
anything in Lojban to stand for that English "anything"
(other than {lo'e}).
mu'o mi'e xorxes
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>tu'o du'u ce'u kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode kei du tu'o ce'u broda da poi
>ckaji tu'o du'u ce'u brode
(I think you're missing a {kei}, or just use {cu du} to make
it simpler.) But that is not the {kairbroda} I was using!
><<
>And {kairbroda} is an ordinary jvajvo from {ckaji broda}, with
>place structure b1 (b2=c1) c2 b3 b4 b5 ...
> >>
>An ordinary jvajvo with an extraordinary semantics: (b2=c1) is dropped (not
>unusual) but plays an active role -- and is quantified to boot.
Only in your version, not in mine. In my version (b2=c1) plays
no active role and the lujvo has ordinary semantics. (It has no
problems with negations for example, as I suspect yours might.)
>I don't see why you would want the {sisku} back; it almost always gives the
>srong results, making it seem like there is a particular ... I am looking
>for, when any would do: exactly your problem which led to your supposedly
>improved {lo'e}.
It never gives the wrong results:
mi sisku le mi santa: I look for my umbrella.
mi sisku lo santa: There is an umbrella that I seek.
mi sisku lo'e santa: I look for an umbrella (any will do).
Simple and no wrong results.
Compare with official sisku:
mi sisku le ka ce'u du le mi santa: I look for my umbrella.
da poi santa zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du da:
There is an umbrella that I seek.
mi sisku le ka ce'u santa: I look for an umbrella (any will do).
Complicated and messy. (But strictly equivalent to my way of
doing it.)
>Some minor proofs, using real lambdas this time -- the {ce'u}s are a pain..
>kairbroda is \x \z(Ey(x broda y & y ckaji z)
Not my {kairbroda}! I must have:
broda is \x \y(x kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u = y)
which doesn't work with your {kairbroda}.
>a broda loe' brode = [...] = a broda lo brode.
My definition of {lo'e} given in terms of my {kairbroda} does
not work with your definition of {kairbroda}, of course. That's
not surprising.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
> la pycyn cusku di'e
> >Sorry, I thought you meant an accurate picture of a generic boa, because,
> >once you get away from that, it gets hard to keep up the claim that it is a
> >pictue of a generic boa rather than something else that it is an accurate
> >picture of.
>
> Right. I don't want to claim that there is anything that it is
> a picture of. I don't want to make the claim: {da poi ... zo'u
> ta pixra da}. Using "generic" as an adjective can be misleading,
> as if boas could be divided into generic and non-generic, which
> has nothing to do with what we want here. It is a picture of a
> boa, but there is no boa such that it is a picture of that boa.
IMO {ta pixra lo'e djacu}, "this is a picture of water", claims that
water exists to the extent that {ta pixra la tom} claims that Tom
exists.
I deliberately changed the example to one using an Engllsh mass noun,
because English handles generic mass nouns in a more straightforward
way than generic count nouns (a boa, the boa, boas, an Afghan, the
Afghan, Afghans, the Afghans), which is partly a reflection of the
greater difficulty of conceptualizing countable categories
generically.
> >What would you do
> >with a generic sofa -- you can't sit on it or use if for decor (it has no
> >color nor pattern nor cushion density).
>
> The use of "generic" as an adjective to translate {lo'e} is
> misleading. Sofas of course have color, pattern and cushion density,
> even all of them do.
"Generic" is a technical term in linguistics: a noun phrase is generic
if it refers to what could loosely be called the 'genus'. The distinction
between generic and nongeneric sofas (as opposed to generic and nongeneric
NPs), or generic and nongeneric medicinal drugs, is a red herring.
> When {lo'e sfofa} is used in a sumti place, the resulting
> claim is not a claim about any thing that is a sofa.
The way I see it (as of today, a reversion to my views of some years
ago), the resulting claim is a claim about the one thing that is sofa.
--And.
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>mi sisku le mi pavyseljirna
> (Can be true if there is something I refer to as "my unicorn")
> >>
>The boring repetition of this dodge is one of my stronger reason for going
>back an rethinking the the whole be-exist axis. I mean, as you well know,
>"the particular unicorn I have in mind." And if that doesn't work, use {la
>cerlakolmz}.
I didn't mean it as a dodge. I still don't understand your objection.
mi sisku lo pavyseljirna poi mi pensi ke'a
There is a unicorn that I am thinking about, which I seek.
This can be true only if there is such a unicorn in the world
of the utterance.
mi sisku le'e pavyseljirna
I seek the unicorn(s) (the one(s) I have in mind).
This is like {lo'e} except that the underlying class is {le'i
pavyseljirna} instead of {lo'i pavyseljirna}.
><<
>mi sisku lo'e pavyseljirna
> I seek a unicorn. (Can be true even in worlds where I have no
> hope of ever finding any.)
> >>
>This is, of course, the case in contention and cannot be used to support
>the
>heretical view as such.
It is used to show the simplicity of the proposed interpretation.
><<
>le mi pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
>lo pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
>mi sisku le ka ce'u pavyseljirna
>(= mi sisku le ka lo pavyseljirna zo'u ce'u du py)
> >>
>Only the third of these is normal Lojban,
What is abnormal about the first two? They seem perfectly
reasonable to me. The one with {le'e} above would be, in
terms of official {sisku}:
mi sisku le ka le pavyseljirna zo'u ce'u du py
>which is why your {kai-} move looks
>a bit like the {sisku} one.
The {sisku} move is half of my {lo'e}-move. My {kairsisku} is
exactly Lojban's official {sisku}. But I don't propose to ever
use {kairsisku}, except in a linguistic discussion about how
to define {lo'e}.
>It isn't the same -- or at least has not yet
>been shown to be.
How can it not be the same, when I am defining my {kairsisku}
as Lojban's {sisku}?
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
[lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa]
>Sorry, I thought you meant an accurate picture of a generic boa, because,
>once you get away from that, it gets hard to keep up the claim that it is a
>pictue of a generic boa rather than something else that it is an accurate
>picture of.
Right. I don't want to claim that there is anything that it is
a picture of. I don't want to make the claim: {da poi ... zo'u
ta pixra da}. Using "generic" as an adjective can be misleading,
as if boas could be divided into generic and non-generic, which
has nothing to do with what we want here. It is a picture of a
boa, but there is no boa such that it is a picture of that boa.
>But if any old boa picture will do and we call it a picture of a
>generic boa, then, sure, you can picture it.
In English, I call it "a picture of a boa". In Lojban, {lo pixra
be lo'e sincrboa}. The English is a bit ambiguous, as it could
be interpreted as {lo pixra be lo sincrboa}, though that is not
always its most natural interpretation.
>Since (sniggle) the picture is
>is not accurate, would a picture of a viper do as well -- or almost. (I
>hope
>the answer is "No" but I will be interested to hear the reason.
A picture of a boa that swallowed an elephant may look like a
picture of a hat to some people, yes. The relationship "pixra"
is rather subjective. It all depends on the context. If
distinguishing boas from vipers is relevant, then the same
thing won't do as a picture for both.
>And if the
>answer is "Yes" then I throw in the towel, ther is just no talking to some
>people so far from the rules of language).
The answer is "sometimes".
<<
>It is certainly not a no-no! {lo'e} is probably a yes-yes
>anywhere {lo} is, though neither entails the other.
> >>
>My remark was to your claim that {viska lo'e sincrboa} made no sense,
I never made that claim. I said that if I told you
{mi viska lo'e sincrboa} you could infer that either mi viska
lo sincrboa or else I'm having visions. So {mi viska lo'e
sincrboa} is perfectly meaningful.
>or
>something along that line and was intended to indicate that, were that
>true,
>{pixra loe' sincrboa} made no sense and for essentially the same reasons.
Both make sense to me.
>When looking up "boa," by the way, I did see a picture of one in the
>dictionary, presumably meant to be typical, since it had no further
>specific
>identification.
Do you think there is a boa such that the picture is a picture
of that boa? There could be, I suppose, though whether there is
or not would be fairly irrelevant for most users of the dictionary.
>I was just a black-and-white sketch, so avoided the issue of
>color (I don't suppose anyone will thaink that the generic boa is white,
>though boas are in an albino sequence, I think).
Would you say of it {ta pixra lo'e simcrboa}?
>So {viska lo'e boa} does make sense. Different from {viska lo boa}?
To the extent that it would allow for personal visions, yes.
In normal circumstances, {viska lo'e sincrboa} should require
{viska lo sincrboa}. But this is because of the meaning of
{viska}, not because of the meaning of {lo'e sincrboa}.
>(For
>either answer, what is special here, since generally they are different and
>generally generics are too abstract to be seen).
The abstract generics that can't be seen are not referred to
here. lo'e sincrboa ka'e se viska, boas can be seen.
> How do you know that talk about generic lions doesn't involve
>particular lions, at least hypothetical particular lions, unless you know
>fairly completely what talk about genric lions does involve?
I'm certain that talk about lions in general does not involve
talk about particular mosquitoes. I suppose you will agree
with me there, even if we don't know fairly completely
what it does involve. In a similar way, I'm also fairly
certain talk about lions in general does not involve
particular lions, even though I can't express fairly
completely what it does involve. There is no logical
contradiction in being sure that it does not involve something
and not being sure in what it does involve.
< In which case,
>why are you hiding this information in your bosom? It seems self-defeating
>as well as cruel to do this.
Either I'm not hiding any information and I'm just not
capable of explaining myself better, or it is all part
of an evil conspiracy to make you suffer, but I won't
tell you which. :)
>I don't have Exy's stuff to hand, so I don't know what picture you are
>talking about.
You can find the work (with the pictures) in almost any language
but English or French here:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/1916/online.html
>What would you do
>with a generic sofa -- you can't sit on it or use if for decor (it has no
>color nor pattern nor cushion density).
The use of "generic" as an adjective to translate {lo'e} is
misleading. Sofas of course have color, pattern and cushion density,
even all of them do.
>In short, this seems no different
>from {le nu mi nitcu tu'a lo sfofa cu purci} is it is sensible at all. You
>are, apparently, going to say that it is not right because it involved {lo
>sfofa}
No. I would say it is not equivalent (though it is right on its
own terms) because it involves an event about sofas.
>byt notice that it does not say anything about an particular sofa(s)
>-- even that there are some (well, it says there are some in another world
>but it is hard to deal with essential properties wihtout other worlds, so
>that can't be the problem either.)
Then we agree at least that ther are particular events about sofas
that don't deal with particular sofas.
I make a distinction between sofas (lo'e sfofa) and events
involving sofas (tu'a lo sfofa).
When {lo'e sfofa} is used in a sumti place, the resulting
claim is not a claim about any thing that is a sofa. There
is nothing originating from that sumti place that is claimed
to be in a relationship with the sumti in the other places.
The only contribution from {lo'e sfofa} goes to modify the
selbri, and the contribution comes purely from the intension/
meaning/sense/whatever of {sfofa}, it does not involve
the corresponding extension. The resulting claim is of a
modified relationship among the remaining sumti.
><<
>I just don't agree that {mi nelci lo'e sfofa}
>is equivalent to {mi nelci lo nu lo sfofa cu co'e}. They
>are both meaningful, but different.
> >>
>As always, in what way? I don't see it.
If I like doing it on the sofa even though I don't like
sofas, then {mi nelci tu'a lo sfofa} is true, and
{mi nelci lo'e sfofa} is false.
>But then, I don't know what {mi
>nelci lo'e sfofa} means.
Just that I like sofas.
>The situations the two describe seem to me to be
>exactly the same.
For me {tu'a lo sfofa} is much more vague.
>At least, I would normally say {mi nelci tu'a lo sfofa}
>for the situation you describe as being what {mi nelci lo'e sfofa}
>describes,
That is perfectly fine. That is a fairly standard Lojban way of
expression. But it does not invalidate the more precise one.
>unless you have failed to mention (or cleverly hidden) some detail that
>makes
>the difference.
Not intentionally, so maybe I fail but not cleverly.
>The ambiguity
>of {tu'a lo sfofa} is the ambiguity of {co'e}, but at least whe know what
>the
>range is there. But we -- I certainly and you i\by implication from the
>fact
>that you won't tell -- hae no idea what {lo'e sfofa} means .
I have a sufficiently for me clear idea, which is not to say
that I can clearly transmit it to you.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
#jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
#> Then this is where we part. To me {da zo'u broda tu'a da} makes
#> a different klaim than {broda tu'a da}, where the quantification
#> of {da} is within the {tu'a} abstraction. I don't know how
#> you can defend the {tu'a} expressions for intensional contexts
#> if you don't think so.
#Yes, different; but the first implies the second. And, under the present
#system at least, the instant case, where {tu'a da} is a cover for {tu'o du'u
#ce'u co'e da}, it's going to get the implication the other way as well.
Is {tu'a da} a cover for {tu'o du'u da zo'u ce'u co'e da}? That is the
crux, and I think we all want the answer to be Yes.
BTW, are you actually proposing locutions like {nelci tu'a lo cakla},
{nelci tu'o du'u ce'u co'e lo cakla}? To me, those don't mean the
same thing as "I like chocolate".
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>I agree that "generic" might be misleading. Is it your term or mine -- or
>And's? In any case, can you suggest a better?
I think any translation of {lo'e broda} that starts with "the"
will be misleading, as English "the" is hardly ever used for
this sense.
>Anyhow, do you understand my reading of your {lo'e}? If so, can you say
>what
>is wrong with it as a step toward articulating the correct position?
I don't fully understand your reading of it, but it does seem
like we're converging on to something.
What do you think of the following analysis (based on And's ideas):
For a given {broda}, we define the predicate {kairbroda}, so
that it means "x1 is broda to something that has property x2".
(Let's assume broda has only two places, other places would
remain for kairbroda the same as for broda).
We can now give a precise definition of {broda} in terms
of {kairbroda}:
ko'a broda ko'e = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du ko'e
ko'a is broda to ko'e = ko'a is broda to something that
has the property of being ko'e
Now if we introduce quantifiers:
da zo'u ko'a broda da = da zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du da
The same for {da poi brode}, which is {lo brode}, and
which can be moved away from the prenex, but only in the
first expression:
ko'a broda lo brode = da poi brode zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
ce'u du da
It is clear that we cannot remove {da poi brode} from the
prenex in the right hand side expression, because that would
put it inside of du'u, and the sense of the whole expression
would change.
Now, what about the expression {ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
ce'u du lo brode}? Is there no way to express it with
broda as the selbri? Let's define {lo'e brode} such that:
ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du lo brode
But {ce'u du lo brode} is just {ce'u brode}, so we can
simplify a bit more:
ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode
This can be repeated for {lo'e brode} in x1 or any other
place just by defining the appropriate corresponding selbri.
I think this analysis works for all the "intensional context"
selbri (indeed the redefinition of {sisku} was an attempt to do
something like this, the gi'uste {sisku} corresponds to the
{kairsisku} that one has to define in order to give the
expansion of {sisku lo'e brode} with original {sisku}.
But the same expansion applies to every selbri, not just the
"intensional context" ones. For example:
ko'a viska lo'e broda = ko'a kairviska tu'o du'u ce'u broda
He sees-something-with-the-property-of
being broda
(No claim that there is something such that it is seen, the
"something" of the English gloss is part of the predicate.
Normally of course there will be something that is seen,
but this is not part of what is claimed.)
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
#la pc cusku di'e:
#> {tu'o}, the "null operand" (nowhere further explained) is used here as a
#> vacuous PA. The grammar requires a descriptor or a number here, but the
fact
#> is that there is always exactly one thing satisfying this description, so
why
#> get involved with all the problems (quantifiers especially) that using a
#> regular form involves?
#
#la xorxes cusku di'e
#>{tu'o} is the "quantifier" you use when you don't want a
#>quantifier.
#
#What is then the semantic of {tu'o broda}? If it is used when there is
#exactly one thing satisfying the description, why not be explicit
#with {lo pa broda}?
Reasons:
1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member
category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity
(e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is
counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an
extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity!
2. {lo pa broda} claims that there is only one broda. {tu'o broda}
does not make such a claim; it is just that there is no other
sensible interpretation for it, so it implies that there is only one
broda. {lo'e broda} does not claim that there is exactly one broda,
but is an instruction to conceptualize broda as a single-member
category.
--And.
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Invent Yourself
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 08:32:42PM +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > {lo ka'e pavyseljirna cu blabi} or else {lo su'o mu'ei pavyseljirna
> > cu blabi} is true (according to my beliefs). {lo ca'a pavysljirna
> > cu blabi} is false.
>
> I read "lo ka'e pavyseljirna" as "something(s) which have the (innate)
> capability of being unicorns," and I don't think they exist either.
Translating from Andban to Lojban, I think he meant lo da'i pavyseljirna
is true, and lo da'inai pavyseljirna is false.
--
Before Sept. 11 there was not the present excited talk about a strike
on Iraq. There is no evidence of any connection between Iraq and that
act of terrorism. Why would that event change the situation?
-- Howard Zinn
And Rosta
#la pycyn cusku di'e
#[lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa]
#>Sorry, I thought you meant an accurate picture of a generic boa, because,
#>once you get away from that, it gets hard to keep up the claim that it is a
#>pictue of a generic boa rather than something else that it is an accurate
#>picture of.
#
#Right. I don't want to claim that there is anything that it is
#a picture of. I don't want to make the claim: {da poi ... zo'u
#ta pixra da}.
Why exactly don't you want to make that claim? There's certainly
a sense in which the picture could depict a particular boa that
even if it doesn't exist in this world, exists in another world (that
the picture is a window onto). Here I see no problem with {da},
as long as there is appropriate use of {ka'e} or {su'o mu'ei} or
suchlike.
This is the sort of situation that would arise in describing a picture
of Sherlock: I don't think we should be forced to say {pixra
lo'e -detective} -- {pixra le ka'e -detective} (or
le su'o mu'ei -detective} is much better.
But there's another sense of "picture of a" not so happily covered
by the above alternative. For example, "on the taskbar button on
my email software there is a picture of a diskette" -- here I certainly
don't want to say that there is a diskette that exists in some worlds
that may or may not include this one, and that is depicted by the
taskbar button. Rather, I mean something like the pattern
on the taskbar button has the visual aspects of the property of
diskettehood. Something like {ta ckaji zei pixra tu'o du'u ce'u
-diskette}, with {ckaji zei pixra} defined as "has visual aspects
of property x2". This is much more like the case you've been
talking about, but I am yet to be persuaded that it calls for
{lo'e}.
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>These seem to me to be paradigm cases (well, not quite, since none of them
>has {lo'e ...} as first argument) of talking about lo'e ..., which is an
>intension (in some sense or other -- I am not at all such which), isn't it?
>You say you like it or that that is like it or that is a picture of it (a
>notion I have a lot of trouble with -- abstract expressionism?)
You know perfectly well that is not what I mean.
I mean "I like chocolate", "that is like a sofa" and "that is a
picture of a boa". They don't mean "there ia some chocolate such
that I like it", "there is some sofa such that that is like it"
or "there is some boa such that that is a picture of it". To get
those latter meanings I would have to use {lo} instead of {lo'e}.
I'm not sure why paradigm cases need to be in x1, but here are
some: {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} "Lions live in Africa",
which is different from "some lions live in africa" (lo),
"all lions live in Africa" (ro), "most lions live in Africa" (so'e).
{lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu", "Cats catch mice", which is
different from saying that "some cats catch some mice", etc.
> Does {lo'e sfofa} refer to the proximate type of
>sofas? Apparently not. What then does it refer to?
{lo'e sfofa} does not refer. It is like {zi'o} to that extent.
Even in the most restricted sense of "the typical" it has to
be like that to make any sense.
>It is obviously not a
>meaningless expression (or you would not fight so hard about it).
Obviously it has the meaning of {sfofa}. It certainly maintains
the intension.
> So, it has
>a sense, that would pick out something in the world, if there is the
>appropriate sort of thing in the world.
No, it doesn't pick anything in the world. It just puts to use
the sense of {sfofa}. It does not get anywhere near the extension.
>Otherwise it fails to refer, perhaps
>accidentally, because the world is shy this sort of object.
It intrinsically does not refer, like {zi'o}. But unlike {zi'o}
it adds some sense to the predicate from which it removes a place.
So {simsa lo'e sfofa} behaves just like the predicate "x1 is like
a sofa in property x2". (I suppose {simsa zi'o} would behave like
"x1 has property x2" maybe.)
> Since you seem
>to think that {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is true, the approriate sort of thing
>must be in the world
No, there is nothing in the world that is a referent of {lo'e sfofa},
neither in my usage nor in the more restricted definition
as "the typical".
>(we have disallowed some weeks ago the possibility that
>some places are inherently opaque [what I used to call intensional before
>there go to be too many things getting called by that name]
We agree there. The x2 of {simsa} is not inherently opaque.
It is perfectly possible to say {ta simsa lo sfofa}: "there is
at least one sofa such that that is like it". Which does not
make exactly the same claim as {ta simsa lo'e sfofa}.
>-- though this
>would be a good candidate, since something can clearly be like something
>that
>does not exist -- e.g. fat men with white beards are like Santa Claus [but
>that is another whole story]).
Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:
lo le la
lo'e le'e ??
But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.
>What the fatal fandango is it? How (in
>addition) does taking {lo'e sfofa} to refer to the proximate type of lo'i
>sfofa, take the type (which one?) as a token of types --
Tokens of the class "types" are the things we talk about in
this meta-discussion. Abstract entities like sets and numbers.
Not things we want to talk about in ordinary discourse.
>and what does that
>mean? The proximate type of all the sfofa is, of course, a token of the
>type
>type, since it is a type (this gets hairy in practice, but has a variety of
>solutions).
I talk about sofas, (not about _some_ sofas, not about _each_ sofa,
not about all the sofas that exist or could exist taken en masse,
also not about the property of being a sofa, but just about sofas).
>It is also a token of the furniture type and the physical object
>type and so on. So, there is no "taking" here, things just are that way.
>But I suspect that none of this is what you mean. Though what that is
>seems
>to come back to using, not talking about, and that was what I hoped this
>section was goiing to clarify rather than circle back to.
I'm afraid I won't be able to clarify it any more than that.
Should we leave it there?
>So, as noted earlier, what would be an example of talking about a type?
This whole conversation has been mostly about types and such, not
about sofas.
>Putting {lo'e broda} in first place? Obviously not. Using {li lo'e broda
>li'u}? Hopefully not. What then?
We don't have a special article for talking about tokens of the
class "type", of course. It would make no sense to have one.
It is bad enough that we have a special article to talk about
tokens of the class "set", something we rarely want to do in
ordinary conversation.
To talk about types we need a word that means "x1 is a type of
property x2" or "x1 is a type of set x2" or some such. Maybe {cnano}
is one such predicate? (Probably it won't always be used in that
sense.) But then we can talk about le cnano be le ka sfofa, the
type of class "sofa". I certainly do not want to claim
{ta simsa le cnano be le ka sfofa} in that sense of {cnano}!
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
Jorge could give us a canonical list of examples using {lo'e}. I
think I understand how Jorge's {lo'e} is supposed to work, but
I'm not yet convinced that {lo'e} is the right solution to generalize
over all examples that have popped up in discussion.
--And.
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Jorge Llambias
la and cusku di'e
>If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can
>be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
>resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
>cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
>seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
>though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
>express adequately in Lojban.
You're right! I think this points to why the best examples
of {lo'e} don't have it in x1: because in English x1 corresponds
to the subject, and the subject is something about which we
say something, and this is not what happens with {lo'e}.
(Indeed bringing {lo} to the subject position by fronting
to the prenex is the best way to show the inadequacy of {lo} in
these cases.) {lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu} still works for
"cats catch mice", as there is nothing being referred to in
this case, I think.
>If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
>intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
>meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
>just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
>as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
I can't do that, because I don't want to refer to the
Lion intension when talking about lions. I only refer
to the Lion intension when talking about meanings, but
that's not what we do in ordinary discourse: we use
meanings, we don't talk about them. My contention
is that {lo'e cinfo} cannot be expressed as {le broda}
or {lo broda} for any broda, just like {zi'o} cannot be
replaced by any {le broda} or {lo broda}.
>A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
>the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
>instead.
I don't mind my debate with pc, indeed it helps me to
clarify at least to myself if not to him what I mean.
I think my use of {lo'e} has enough in common with
the gloss "the typical" (even if it's not the perfect
gloss) that I can use it. And I think it would be much
harder to get anyone else to accept a new cmavo than to
accept my usage of {lo'e}.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
_________________________________________________________________
Jorge Llambias
la and cusku di'e
>So how would you do "The [generic] lion lives in Africa"?
I think I would say:
lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko
to say that Africa has lions. I agree that {loi} would work
just as well here, and so would {lo}.
Now, if the meaning is that Afrika is the only relevant place
where lions live, I would say:
lo'e cinfu cu xabju le friko po'o
Only Africa is inhabited by lions: The lion lives (only) in Africa.
{loi} and {lo} would not work here due to scope issues. We would
need to put {le friko po'o} in front of the {su'o} quantifier to
get the right sense:
le friko po'o cu se xabju loi cinfo
>I'm not suggesting that as a satisfactory substitute for lo'e;
>I'm suggesting it as a way of making explicit what lo'e is
>short for. For instance, "ko'a cinfo" can be said as
>"tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo ku ckaji ko'a" -- there you're
>talking about lions yet referring to the Lion intension,
>so it's not impossible, even if it is not the way you'd
>ordinarily want to express it.
Ok, I think {lo'e broda} cannot be expanded in terms of
{su'o da} or {ro da}. It could be done with {zu'i poi}
but that doesn't help you. If you accept {tu'o} then it
might just be that {lo'e broda} = {tu'o lo broda}.
>OK. Once you've persuaded pc you'll have to said about
>persuading everyone else; it's the one xorxesism I've
>never bought.
I'm sure there were others, some which you persuaded me
to abandon.
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
><<
> > No, I don't think so. {ta pixra lo'e sincrboa} does not give an
> > inherent property, nor any property, of boas. It only gives a
> > property of ta.
> > >>
>No it gives a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa on the surface.
But only on the surface. Since {lo'e sincrboa} is not a referring
term, talking of "a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa" doesn't
mean much, because it suggests that there are two things being
related, which is not the case. There is only one thing, ta, and
something is predicated of that thing.
>The issue
>is what does all that come down to at the bottom. I suppose that {ta pixra
>lo'e sincrboa} means something like "That presents an image which manifests
>[some condition here] visual properties associated with boas" where, with
>the
>Lojban {lo'e} the box is filled with "some visually adequate typical".
Most of that is contained in {pixra}, not in {lo'e sincrboa}.
What does it mean to say {ta pixra le vi sincrboa}? Something
like "That presents an image which manifests [some condition here]
visual properties associated with this boa here".
>But {pixra lo'e sincrboa} behaves
>differently and her we have to come up with some other properties, since
>the
>property of being a boa, as such, is not picturable.
If a particular boa is picturable, then boas are picturable.
There is no need to bring in other properties in the generic
case any more than in the particular case.
>We have to go inside
>and see what that means in visual terms.
To understand what {pixra} means, yes. But not to understand
what {lo'e sincrboa} means.
[lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko]
>Let me put it another way. Your claim is, I gather, meant to be a
>different
>claim from {lo cinfo cu xabju le frika}, which clearly makes no claim about
>lions not living (even natively) elsewhere (it doesn't even claim that they
>live natively in Africa, come to think of it). The Lojban interpretation
>makes this a typical fact about members of the set of lions: typically, if
>something were a member of that set, it would live in Africa -- which is
>clearly different from the {lo} version (it doesn't claim there are lions
>for
>one thing) but also makes not claim about whether there are lions
>elsewhere.
>{xabju} says nothing about main or sole inhabitants. But what does you
>{lo'e} say? At the moment it seems indistinguishable from the Lojban
>bversions -- unless it is jjust {lo} "without the quantification," whatever
>that might mean.
Yes, it basically is {lo} without the quantification, but that is
not saying much, since {lo} in itself is an empty gadri. Indeed
Loglan does not have anything equivalent to it, it just uses
{su'o broda} (or often {pa broda}) where we use {lo broda}.
>My question is now "what preoperties are delimited by your {lo'e sfofa} .
>If
>nothing beyond being a sofa, then this is just {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} and as
>uninteresting as cases where it amounts to nothing more than {lo sfofa}.
{tu'a lo sfofa} is either {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} or
{le du'u lo sfofa cu co'e}, neither of which would fit
as replacement in {nelci lo'e sfofa}.
>{zu'i} doesn't mean "the typical value in this context," it is just
>replaced
>by the typical value in this context.
Well... I have never seen it in use, so I have started using it
to translate generic "one", as in:
i fa'a le sirji crane zu'i na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
Droit devant soi on ne peut pas aller bien loin...
(Going straight ahead, one can't go very far...)
That of course is not meant to be replaced by a typical value.
(This, BTW, was not my idea. Someone else suggested it on the
wiki, and it certainly fits with my use of {lo'e}.)
>In addition, {zu'i [poi broda]} is
>bindable to {da}, against your notion of {lo'e} and certainly against what
>I
>was about in the previous sentences.
{zu'i} in the sense of "one" is not bindable to {da}.
>We seem to be approaching an understanding here -- asymptotically, since
>you
>are still flying off in various directions -- but we still need a statement
>of what {lo'e} means, how it specifies the proerties of members of the set
>which ar relevant.
I would say that the only relevant property for {lo'e broda} is
lo ka ce'u broda, just as it is the only relevant property for
{lo broda} or for {lo'i broda}. They are all different ways of
dealing with the same class.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
> &:
> <<
> There is a difference between claiming something and implying something.
> This shows up, for example, if the whole sentence is negated.
> >>
> both imply that there is only one broda, while {pa broda cu brode}
> does and {pa broda na brode} does not.
{tu'o broda cu brode} and {tu'o broda na brode} both imply that there
is only one broda, while {lo pa broda cu brode} claims there is
only one broda and {lo pa broda na brode} does not.
Furthermore, {lo pa broda na brode} is true if there is not only
one broda, while {tu'o broda na brode} is true only if tu'o broda
na brode.
> That, if true, would be a reason for using {tu'o}.
Indeed.
> I can't think of any reason to think it is true in Lojban (but
> then, I have no idea what {tu'o} means in Lojban).
It's a dummy word, similar to, say, zi'o. It has no meaning.
--And.
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And Rosta
> I agree that "generic" might be misleading. Is it your term or mine
> -- or And's?
I introduced it into the discussion, but it's standard in linguistics
for "Beavers/The beaver/A beaver build(s) dams" type cases. AFAIK
it hasn't been applied to the "need a box", "resemble a sofa", etc.
cases we've been discussing, though.
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Lionel Vidal
> #What is then the semantic of {tu'o broda}? If it is used when there is
> #exactly one thing satisfying the description, why not be explicit
> #with {lo pa broda}?
> Reasons:
> 1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member
> category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity
> (e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is
> counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an
> extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity!
err, but then I can use {pa broda} which the book says is syntactically
the same as {lo pa broda}, and get only one marker. Besides, one should
always worry about quantifiers, as they are always there, implicit
or not. Why not indicate your reader clearly that exactly one thing satisfy
the description if it is indeed the case? This will relieve the reader to
draw that eventually needed conclusion from the use of {tu'a}.
> 2. {lo pa broda} claims that there is only one broda. {tu'o broda}
> does not make such a claim; it is just that there is no other
> sensible interpretation for it, so it implies that there is only one
> broda.
In that case, I don't see any differences as I do need this implication
result to fully understand the semantic of {tu'o broda}.
>{lo'e broda} does not claim that there is exactly one broda,
> but is an instruction to conceptualize broda as a single-member
> category.
pc:
>Why not just use {le} or even {lo} since these all amount to the same
> thing in this case -- or {pa}, for that matter.
I agree that in this case, all these amount to the same thing, but:
- {lo} alone seems less clear to me as I have still to analyse {broda} to
realize that it is equivallent to {lo pa} (or {pa}). With the use of {pa}
I am warned before hand, and the overall intended meaning could be
more apparent.
- {le} seems the lesser clear in that case as it potentially includes a
disagreement on the true referent between the speaker and the
listener, when for once, only one interpretation, at least in the
speaker mind, could fit.
mu'omi'e lioNEL
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>Your {kairsisku} applied to
>old {sisku} does not obviously give modern {sisku}, partly because modern
>{sisku}, while messy, dseems to be coherent, while {kairbroda} does not, at
>least in connection with {broda}.
Ok, let me try a different tack. Forget about old {sisku}.
Let's consider modern {sisku} only, messy but coherent.
Now I will define a new predicate {buska} like this:
le ka ce'u goi ko'a ce'u goi ko'e zo'u
ko'a buska ko'e
cu du
le ka ce'u goi ko'a ce'u goi ko'e zo'u
ko'a sisku le ka ce'u du ko'e
[As an aside: in a Lojban-Lojban dictionary I would expect to
find this definition written as:
buska: ko'a sisku le ka ce'u du ko'e
The rest is superfluous given that we know it is a definition.
ko'a, ko'e, ko'i, etc will always stand for x1, x2, x3, etc
of the brivla being defined.]
To me, this {buska} is just like old {sisku}, but you don't
have to accept that, just take {buska} as defined above in
terms of modern {sisku}.
Now I can say things like {mi buska le mi santa},
{mi buska lo santa} instead of using the longwinded
modern-sisku forms.
I now define {lo'e} so that
mi buska lo'e broda
is an abbreviated form of:
mi sisku le ka ce'u broda
Which can also be written as:
mi sisku le ka lo broda zo'u ce'u du by
This way of writing is convenient to see clearly the
difference between {mi buska lo broda} and {mi buska lo'e broda}:
mi buska lo broda = lo broda zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du by
mi buska lo'e broda = mi sisku le ka lo broda zo'u ce'u du by
So far I have only defined {lo'e broda} when it appears in a
particular place of a particular predicate (x2 of buska), but
it is trivial to generalize it to any place of any predicate.
All you need is a proto-predicate like {sisku} is to {buska}.
>t does not say so, of course, because no one thought up these kinds of
>weird
>cases back then, but the assumption was that the property involved was a
>nuclear one, not one that derives indirectly from something else, like"
>being
>thought of by Frank" or "being identical to Charlie." Once the nuclear
>proeprties are in hand, I suppose we can work out how the others work, but
>it
>is certainly notov\bvious that they are the same.
How do you define nuclear properties? {le ka ce'u broda} is
nuclear for any broda except {du}, or something like that?
Would it help if instead of {du} I used {me}?
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Jordan DeLong
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 10:10:32AM -0500, Jordan DeLong wrote:
>
> > Furthermore, though the word order leads to different likely interpretation
> > it doesn't change the possible meanings.
> > ro da prami de
> > Can mean "Everyone loves >=one other (the same) person" just as much as it
> > can mean "Everyone loves someone (else)".
>
> In fact it means neither: it means "Everyone loves some person(s), possibly
> different person(s) for each or even themselves." When sumti appear in a
> bridi with no prenex, their scope is uniformly left-to-right.
>
> Unless you mean that the Lojban statement is entailed by either English
> sentence, which is certainly true.
That was what I meant. Obviously the lojban sentence isn't even talking
about people only, neccesarily.
> > I was discussing this point with some people on IRC a while back, and
> > bunk I say! bunk! Of course unicorns exist: they're concepts.
>
> Not at all. The concept of a unicorn is a concept, and it exists, just
> as the concept of a horse exists. Otherwise we are in the position of
> saying that horses are animals, but unicorns are concepts, which is very ugly.
>
> > I say {mi djica lenu lo pavyseljirna cu klama ti} there's nothing wrong
> > with the bridi, as I really do desire that su'o lo ro pavyseljirna
> > come (even if ro = 0; the su'o is just the number I'm wanting).
>
> There *is* nothing wrong, because nu-events exist even if the things inside
> don't. But lo pavyseljirna cu blabi, "some unicorn is white", that's
> rubbish.
>
> > Additionally, certainly you can dream a unicorn klama do, as unicorns
> > *do* exist in dreams. With:
> > da poi pavyseljirna zo'u mi senva ledu'u da klama mi
> > says "there is a unicorn such that I dreamt it came to me".
>
> That claim is false. A true claim would be:
>
> mi senva ledu'u lo pavyseljirna da klama mi
ru'a lu mi senva ledu'u da poi pavyseljirna zo'u da klama mi li'u
> which puts the unicorn firmly inside the context of a proposition.
Ahh... this way of looking at it works for me. Other than the
correction you make to where to scope the prenex (which I agree
with) it leads to the same result as my (less well formulated)
assertion: Since unicorns only exist conceptually, talking about
them at the bridi scope produces bridi which (though interesting,
perhaps), are likely false. Talking about dreaming about them, or
djica lezu'o citka da poi pavyseljirna, etc, all still work just
fine.
Thanks for making this a bit clearer to me.
--
Jordan DeLong - frac...@allusion.net
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
<<
>ko'a broda ko'e = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du ko'e
> >>
>That works out all right, but I would resent calling RHS a *definition* of
>LHS; if any thing, the defining goes the other way -- as the status of the
>words involved quite rightly suggest.
But the RHS is not fully defined by that expression. I think you
can't express what {ko'a kairbroda ko'e} means in terms of {broda}.
At least I don't see an easy way to do it.
In any case, it doesn't matter. All that matters for our purposes
is that the two expressions be equivalent.
<<
>ko'a broda lo brode = da poi brode zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
> ce'u du da
>
>It is clear that we cannot remove {da poi brode} from the
>prenex in the right hand side expression, because that would
>put it inside of du'u, and the sense of the whole expression
>would change.
> >>
>This is not obvious and I am inclined at first glance to think it false.
Then this is where we part. To me {da zo'u broda tu'a da} makes
a different klaim than {broda tu'a da}, where the quantification
of {da} is within the {tu'a} abstraction. I don't know how
you can defend the {tu'a} expressions for intensional contexts
if you don't think so.
>Quantifying in -- moving a quantifier from outside an intensional context
>to
>inside -- is rarely a problem, though some information information may be
>lost.
If some information is lost then you can't do it and keep the
same meaning. I said nothing about one way entailment. You have
to be able to move in and out for them to be equivalent.
Well, at least we don't need to argue anymore. You have my precise
definition, and we know exactly where we disagree. This is my
definition of {lo'e}:
ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode
And {kairbroda} is an ordinary jvajvo from {ckaji broda}, with
place structure b1 (b2=c1) c2 b3 b4 b5 ...
>Your move is somewhat like the one in getting to the present {sisku}
Yes, as I said, the official {sisku} would correspond to {kairsisku}
if {sisku} was defined as I favour, so that I can say {mi sisku
le mi santa} for "I am looking for my umbrella". With that definition
{mi sisku lo'e santa} is {mi kairsisku tu'o du'u ce'u santa}, which
is exactly how the official definition (my {kairsisku} here) is
supposed to be used, to say "I'm looking for an umbrella" without
claiming that there is an umbrella being sought by me.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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And Rosta
> But lo pavyseljirna cu blabi, "some unicorn is white", that's rubbish.
{lo ka'e pavyseljirna cu blabi} or else {lo su'o mu'ei pavyseljirna
cu blabi} is true (according to my beliefs). {lo ca'a pavysljirna
cu blabi} is false.
--And.
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Jorge Llambias
la djan cusku di'e
>I find the concept "viska lo'e co'e" a bit disturbing, unless it were
>construed as "seeing something which has visual features typical of X",
>which would be yet a further extension of "lo'e". (Or would it?)
The problem comes from trying to give a referent to {lo'e co'e}.
It doesn't have a referent. "viska lo'e co'e" does not claim that
there is something that is seen. (Normally, when you see something,
it is also the case that there is something seen, but {lo'e},
unlike {lo} makes no claim one way or the other about there being
something which is seen.)
>That which can be seen has a color, but what is the color of lo'e
>sincrbo'a?
I'm not an expert on boas, but I understand there is no one
color of boas, is there? Several colours can be "a" color of boas,
but probably none is _the_ color of boas.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>I suspect this is a terminological muddle (again). I meant that Lojban
>opens
>up a broad possibility for things that can be true of {lo'e broda},
>anything
>that is typical across the set of broda, and I have been taking your
>position
>to be that {lo'e broda} does was restricted to inherent (or close on)
>properties of the members of that set.
No, I don't think so. {ta pixra lo'e sincrboa} does not give an
inherent property, nor any property, of boas. It only gives a
property of ta.
>And it still does seem to be that way,
>since the relevant set of properties seem to be just those very close to
>inherent in being chocolate.
I don't think {lo'e cakla} involves directly any property other
than {le ka ce'u cakla}. What exactly that property is has to do
with the meaning/intension/whatever of {cakla}. I don't think
there is any need to look for any other properties to understand
{lo'e}. Only that one property is relevant.
>I would take it that, in your case, {lo'e cinfo cu
>xabju la frikas} is much less certainly true, since, even zoos aside, lions
>live, and can and have lived, in lots of other places (currently only
>India/Pakistan, but once at the gates of Rome and Athens).
For me {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} does not preclude lions
living in other places. As And pointed out, it is a claim about
Africa: it's inhabited by lions. That's all. If it fails, it is
because Africa is inhabited by many other creatures as well as
lions, not because lions may also inhabit other places. It all
depends on the semantics of xabju: is x1 supposed to be for the
main inhabitant(s) of x2? If not, then there is no problem with
the claim.
><<
> >Does {mi
> >nelci lo'e sfofa} means something like (we can prise out the details
>later)
> >"I would like anything that had the properties delimited in {lo'e
>sfofa}"?
>
>If your "anything" there is not a {da}, ok. But we don't have
>anything in Lojban to stand for that English "anything"
>(other than {lo'e}).
> >>
>The "anything" is just {roda}, I think, but it is in an intensional
>contexts
>of sentence length at least.
As long as nobody is tempted to translate it as {mi nelci ro da
poi ...}.
Actually, we may have something in Lojban for that:
lo broda = da poi broda
lo'e broda = zu'i poi broda
Yes, I think that could work.
>Notice that this sentence is to explain {lo'e},
>so {lo'e} has no place in it -- its components have been spread over the
>whole sentence. {lo'e broda} is ultimately an improper symbol in Russell's
>sense -- when the semantics are laid out, there is nothing to correspond to
>that symbol, but the whole sentence works.
I suppose {zi'o} is also an improper symbol, then. And {zu'i} too.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
_________________________________________________________________
Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>Yes, lo sincrboa is picturable, but you want a picture of lo'e sincrboa,
>which we can't drag out an look at and compare with the picture.
You don't have to drag it out. All you need is to know what
{sincrboa} means.
>All we have
>to go on in the generic case is the (weighted?) list of properties that
>somehow (still haven't said how) characterize the members of lo'i sincrboa.
Yes, an imaginary list which need not be made explicit. If I tell
you from here, where you can't see me nor the boa, {mi viska lo
sincrboa} you need to know the same list of properties in order
to understand what I mean. If I tell you {mi viska lo'e sincrboa}
you can conclude that either {mi viska lo sincrboa} or else I'm
having visions, but you don't need to know anything else about
boas than what you needed for the claim with {lo}.
{lo'e sincrboa} provides a way to use the intension of
lo'i sincrboa in a sumti slot directly. (Not to make a claim about
the intension of lo'i sincrboa, that's what {le ka sincrboa}
is for.)
>I think that, in fact, barring the miraculous appearance of a better
>explanation, {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is exactly what {nelci lo'e sfofa}
>means. In what does it differ. DON'T "in that it deals with generic sofas
>not particular ones" since {le nu lo sfofa co'e} doesn't deal with any
>particular sofa either -- that is what intensional contexts do best.
I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas.
I did say it deals with particular events.
>I
>suspect that {co'e} is something about lying on 'em or looking at 'em, just
>as {nelci lo'e cakla} = {nelci le nu lo cakla co'e} is about eating 'em.
That other claim may very well be true. But if it is possible to
like a particular sofa without saying that it is doing something
about it that I like, it should also possible to like sofas in
general without saying that it is doing something about them that
I like.
>Nor
>-- your other line -- that it can't be quantified over, since neither can
>{tu'a lo ...} What is different?
For me, liking sofas is different to liking an event. I never
disputed that {tu'a} works as a way to get the quantifier out
of the way, but it also changes the level of abstraction, from
liking sofas to liking things that happen in/with/about/to sofas.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>We are left with what I take to be true and also what xorxes is trying to
>say
>regardless of how often he rejects it: {lo'e broda} for xorxes is like
>{lo'e
>broda} in Lojban in that it signals a complex hypothetical claim that
>relies
>on le du'u ce'u broda
I won't deny that until I see the complex hypothetical claim
expressed in Lojban. Unless it is so hypothetical that it can't
be expressed, in which case I have no problem with it. :)
>and says something about the members of lo'i broda.
I think a claim using {lo'e broda} does not claim anything about
any particular member of lo'i broda, and it would make sense even
in the extreme cases when there are no members.
>In
>xorxes' case (barring the not yet forthcoming better story) it says what
>the
>essential features are, in Lojban what the typical features are.
I'm not sure I understand the point here. Saying {mi nelci lo'e
cakla} does not claim that my liking chocolate is essential to
chocolate (nor that it is typical of chocolate, for that matter).
It does not preclude either that my liking of chocolate comes from
my liking of what some might consider some non-essential feature
of chocolate: maybe I like chocolate because it brings back
memories of something, but bringing memories of something would not
be an essential property of chocolate. So I don't understand what
essential properties have to do with my position. The only property
involved as I see it is {le ka ce'u cakla}.
<<
>It has the quantifier of {da} within the scope of the negation,
>so that I can't continue talking about the same "one" in the
>next sentence
> >>
>Well, CLL waffles on that, so, if you did it, no one would complain much,
>and
>you can always use {ice} rather than just {i}.
I can do it grammatically, yes. It just doesn't make any sense
logically.
>You can also use anaphora (if
>it is possible to use Lojban anaphora reliably): {le go'i} or {ra} or ...Or
>you can tag even {da} with {goi}.
But referring back to a bound variable outside the binding
context returns nonsense.
Consider for example:
noda zo'u da klama
Nobody came.
What does {le go'i} refer to? What if we express it as:
roda zo'u da naku klama
And Rosta
> jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
> <<
> I won't deny that until I see the complex hypothetical claim
> expressed in Lojban. Unless it is so hypothetical that it can't
> be expressed, in which case I have no problem with it. :)
> >>
> why we have {lo'e} at all. But I am not about to get kicked around
> again trying to work out Lojban hypotheticals and their kin. When
> someone else gets that right, I will be happy to do these in Lojban.
If you could post a set of English sentences that exemplify the
hypotheticals that need to be rendered into Lojban, I'll see what
I can do. My hope would be that {mu'ei} and {ba'oi} would do the
job, but I'm not sure if they cover everything.
--And.
And Rosta
> and:
> > I don't see a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro}. What
> > am I missing?
> It does not matter as long as you exclude the case of 0 with {ro}, and
> this...
>
> pc:
> >The {ro}-{su'o} distinction goes back to a time when someone thought
> >that {ro}, "every," permitted the case of 0 of the whatsis and {su'o}
> > did not. The first part of this turned out to be false in the official
> line
>
> I did not know that the case was settled. In any cases, the book is not
> at all explicit about this and I think I remember a recent mail from
> xorxes where he says he does include 0.
Well, yes; I too think it includes 0.
> This being said, I agree that {ro} should not include the 0 case from
> a logical and practical point of view.
>
> > > Note that {pa broda} is nonetheless still the same in
> > > our case than {tu'o broda}.
> > Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here.
>
> Sorry, that was badly expressed: I meant that the truth value and
> the implication on the referent cardinality would be the same.
I'm still not sure I understand. But {pa broda} does not claim
that there is only one broda, if that is what you are saying.
> > 1. {lo pa} is sensitive to negation: whereas {tu'o broda na brode}
> > is unproblematic, it corresponds to {lo pa broda na ku brode}, not
> > to {lo pa broda na brode}.
>
> Interresting: you seem to think that {naku} will have an impact
> on moving through {lo pa}. I don't think {naku} will change the
> inner quantifier of the {lo} expression. That is:
> {lo pa broda naku brode} = {su 'o lo pa broda naku brode}
yes, this is uncontroversial
> = {naku zu'o ro lo pa broda cu brode} = {ro lo pa broda na brode}
zo'u? It is unnecessary here.
I don't agree that the last 2 are equivalent to the first 2, since
the first 2 mean:
ge su'o broda na ku brode gi lo'i broda cu pa mei
and the second two mean:
na ku ge ro broda cu brode gi lo'i broda cu pa mei
> and, again with exclusion of the 0 case of {ro}
> = {lo pa broda na brode}
>
> Now, I may have a problem with the semantic of {na} and {naku},
> specifically with the negation of the referent existence:
> providing that with {lo broda cu brode} I claim 2 things,
> the existence of at least one {broda} referent, and the {brode}
> relationship, does the {na} or {naku} in {lo broda na/naku brode},
> apart from deying the {brode} relationship, still claim (or imply)
> the existence of at least one {broda} referent?
> I would say yes with both {na} and {naku}, but after reading again
> the related chapters of the book, I can't say it has been made explicit
> (or I failed to see it).
Your assessment of the current state of play is accurate, I think,
but as I have said to pc, where there is dispute about whether some
piece of meaning is within the scope of what is asserted or
outside it (i.e. presupposed/conventionally implicated), the
default/null hypothesis is that it is within. This is because
Lojban makes little if any use of presupposition/conventional
implicature (outside of UI, at least), does not discuss it in
Woldy, and has no established tradition of acknowledging its
existence in Lojban.
> > 2. {lo pa} makes a claim. I do not wish it to have to be the case
> > that whenever I talk about a du'u I also claim that there is only
> > one du'u. If I say {lo pa broda cu brode} I am claiming that
> > (i) something is broda and brode, and (ii) the cardinality of
> > lo'i broda is 1. But I want to be able to claim only (i).
>
> If you want to claim only (i), than {lo} alone does just that.
But we had already established the reasons for wanting to signal
that there is only one broda. The issue is how to signal it -- to
make processing easier -- without claiming it.
> > First off, let me note that {lo'e} serves as an adequate alternative
> > to {tu'o}.
>
> As I understand now your definition of {lo'e}, it cannot be a true
> alternative to {tu'o}:
> {lo'e broda cu brode} can be true even if {lo broda} has no referent,
> because {lo'e broda} is mainly an category abstraction and does have
> a referent, while {tu'o broda} implies the existence of a broda referent.
> But I may have misunderstood your definition of {lo'e, given in the ever
> lasting thread on 'chocolate and unicorns' :-)
They're not exact equivalents, but in the case of a class that
uncontroversially has only one member, they are functionally
equivalent.
--And.
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In a message dated 9/13/2002 7:14:58 AM Central Daylight Time,
a.r...@lycos.co.uk writes:
<<
> If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can
> be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
> resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
> cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
> seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
> though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
> express adequately in Lojban.
>>
Cherlin's former tag from Alice, "Oh, a knot! Let me untie it," applies here:
givena tanru, somone always want to unpack it and so {lo'e} and the like make
a nice way-station on that trip (but far short of the last stage, I think).
<<
If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
>>
Some place back in that chocolate pile are some arguments against {tu'o} here
(or anywhere), but I can't drag them out just now. In any case, I think it
is finally clear that xorxes' {lo'e ...} is different from {le/lo/tu'o/no'o
du'u ce'u ...} -- and rather more complex.
Is {ce'u da} two terms (as CLL appears to have it) or "lambda x" as good ogic
would use it? I root for the latter but despair of achieving anything with
{du'u/ka} anymore.
<<
But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose
meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years
upon years of discussion, should be binned
>>
I think we need more of them, since what can be said with them takes for ever
without them. As for nil consensus, some parts of the language are just
ahrder to master than others -- even for the people who invented them
(encouraging sign of the language's autonomy).
<<
A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
instead
>>
No, the word was only peripherally the issue (and turned out to be the one
part that approximately made correct sense). Figuring out what xorxes meant
would have had to be done in any case. And, I think, the results is now
pretty close to considerable clarity on the matter (I'm still not sure
exactly what xorxes means, but I know the category and how most of what the
line of chat works).
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<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2>In a message dated 9/13/2002 7:14:58 AM Central Daylight Time, a.r...@lycos.co.uk writes:<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can <BR>
be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-<BR>
resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e <BR>
cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which <BR>
seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",<BR>
though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to<BR>
express adequately in Lojban.</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
>><BR>
Cherlin's former tag from Alice, "Oh, a knot! Let me untie it," applies here: givena tanru, somone always want to unpack it and so {lo'e} and the like make a nice way-station on that trip (but far short of the last stage, I think).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion<BR>
intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the<BR>
meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",<BR>
just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined<BR>
as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.<BR>
>> <BR>
Some place back in that chocolate pile are some arguments against {tu'o} here (or anywhere), but I can't drag them out just now. In any case, I think it is finally clear that xorxes' {lo'e ...} is different from {le/lo/tu'o/no'o du'u ce'u ...} -- and rather more complex.<BR>
Is {ce'u da} two terms (as CLL appears to have it) or "lambda x" as good ogic would use it? I root for the latter but despair of achieving anything with {du'u/ka} anymore.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose <BR>
meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years<BR>
upon years of discussion, should be binned<BR>
>><BR>
I think we need more of them, since what can be said with them takes for ever without them. As for nil consensus, some parts of the language are just ahrder to master than others -- even for the people who invented them (encouraging sign of the language's autonomy).<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed<BR>
the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes<BR>
instead<BR>
>><BR>
No, the word was only peripherally the issue (and turned out to be the one part that approximately made correct sense). Figuring out what xorxes meant would have had to be done in any case. And, I think, the results is now pretty close to considerable clarity on the matter (I'm still not sure exactly what xorxes means, but I know the category and how most of what the line of chat works).</FONT></HTML>
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Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 13:13:43 +0100
Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate
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XORXES:
> I mean "I like chocolate", "that is like a sofa" and "that is a
> picture of a boa". They don't mean "there ia some chocolate such
> that I like it", "there is some sofa such that that is like it"
> or "there is some boa such that that is a picture of it". To get
> those latter meanings I would have to use {lo} instead of {lo'e}.
>
> I'm not sure why paradigm cases need to be in x1, but here are
> some: {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} "Lions live in Africa",
> which is different from "some lions live in africa" (lo),
> "all lions live in Africa" (ro), "most lions live in Africa" (so'e).
> {lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu", "Cats catch mice", which is
> different from saying that "some cats catch some mice", etc.
If, as you have been wont to say, "mi nelci lo'e cakla" etc. can
be aptly glossed as "I am a chocolate-liker", "That is a sofa-
resembler"/"That is sofa-like", "That is a boa-depicter", then "lo'e
cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
express adequately in Lojban.
If "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" is the way to refer to the Lion
intension, I wonder if ways can be found to express all the
meanings using "tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo" rather than "lo'e",
just for the sake of clarity. Then "lo'e" could be defined
as an abbreviation of certain more longwinded Lojban forms.
Excuse my having read this previous thread in only a desultory
way -- I read your summary postings assiduously, but keeping
track of the debates with pc I find very wearing.
> Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:
> lo le la
> lo'e le'e ??
>
> But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.
If you really wanted to fill the gap you could pick a spare
cmavo -- {lai'e}, say.
But I would rather abolish lo'e/le'e. Any cmavo about whose
meaning there is virtually nil consensus, even after years
upon years of discussion, should be binned.
A lot of your debate with pc could be avoided if you eschewed
the form {lo'e} and used an unassigned cmavo for your purposes
instead.
--And.
John Cowan
> Of course, this involves a looks-like correlation (not at all natural, for all
> that) and the case might be harder with non-representational or differently
> representational (e.g., cubism) conventions
I think it's erroneous to talk of "non-representational painting", a painting
being essentially a representation, though not perhaps of anything we can see.
"Non-objective painting" might be more appropriate. If a painting weren't
a representation, it would be what Mark Twain said Whistler's painting was:
a canvas covered with smears of tomato juice (or something to that effect).
"We must be very careful to avoid wifty thinking."
--David Jenner
--
What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the John Cowan
sound of a [Ww]all that people have stopped jco...@reutershealth.com
banging their head against? --Larry http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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<<
Then this is where we part. To me {da zo'u broda tu'a da} makes
a different klaim than {broda tu'a da}, where the quantification
of {da} is within the {tu'a} abstraction. I don't know how
you can defend the {tu'a} expressions for intensional contexts
if you don't think so.
>>
<<
>Quantifying in -- moving a quantifier from outside an intensional context
>to
>inside -- is rarely a problem, though some information information may be
>lost.
If some information is lost then you can't do it and keep the
same meaning. I said nothing about one way entailment. You have
>>
I didn't say they had the same meaning, only that they will be true -- in the instant case -- in exactly the same situations, material equivalence.
<<
But the RHS is not fully defined by that expression. I think you
can't express what {ko'a kairbroda ko'e} means in terms of {broda}.
At least I don't see an easy way to do it.
>>
<<
ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode
And {kairbroda} is an ordinary jvajvo from {ckaji broda}, with
place structure b1 (b2=c1) c2 b3 b4 b5 ...
>>
<<
Yes, as I said, the official {sisku} would correspond to {kairsisku}
if {sisku} was defined as I favour, so that I can say {mi sisku
le mi santa} for "I am looking for my umbrella". With that definition
{mi sisku lo'e santa} is {mi kairsisku tu'o du'u ce'u santa}, which
is exactly how the official definition (my {kairsisku} here) is
supposed to be used, to say "I'm looking for an umbrella" without
claiming that there is an umbrella being sought by me.
>>
Some minor proofs, using real lambdas this time -- the {ce'u}s are a pain..
kairbroda is \x \z(Ey(x broda y & y ckaji z)
Ew a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du w = (eventually) Ew ( Ey(a broda y and y = w)) =
(eventually again) Ey(a broda y & Ew y = w) = (ditto) a kairbroda tu'o du'u da zo'u ce'u du da.
a broda loe' brode = a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode = Ey( a broda y & y brode) = da poi brode zo'u a broda y = a broda lo brode.
It is hard to get an unmediated relation between an object and a property ({ckaji} excepted) and, when there is mediation, the property tends to reduce back to its appliction to the mediator. Plato fell for the hope of burying the mediator, soe of his successors deliberately used the trick to fool the unwary (Hermetics at least, if not Gnostics).
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And Rosta
> aro...@uclan.ac.uk writes:
> <<
>
> 1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member
> category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity
> (e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is
> counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an
> extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity!
>
> >>
> sure what that means either, so I will read it as "set")
Read it as "intensionally-defined set".
> that we are
> interested in are enormously more complex than the set of dogs, say.
?
> But moreover, {pa} is simpler by any normal measurement than {tu'o}
> (assuming that {tu'o} has any content at all).
I said that {tu'o} is simpler than {lo pa}, by the obvious criterion
of word count.
> <<
> 2. {lo pa broda} claims that there is only one broda. {tu'o broda}
> does not make such a claim; it is just that there is no other
> sensible interpretation for it, so it implies that there is only one
> broda. {lo'e broda} does not claim that there is exactly one broda,
> but is an instruction to conceptualize broda as a single-member
> category.
> >>
> If some claim is essential for some operation, it is always better to
> make it than to imply it.
Quite so. And conversely, to make an inessential claim is a distraction
from the essential claim.
> The interpretation of {lo'e} -- xorxes'
> {lo'e} that is -- is contentious and, amazingly, even less clear than
> xorxes original or modified claims.
I haven't totally given up on making you able to understand it,
but past experience makes me pessimistic. On the whole, if Jorge
and I understand and agree with each other, I'm usually fairly
confident that we're onto the Right Idea.
--And.
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Jorge Llambias
la pycyn cusku di'e
>I skip over the {sisku} stuff, since I wouldn't hang anything on how
>{sisku}.
> The change was needed, but the way chosen was not the ideal one; other
>changes went better.
Would you say that official {sisku} is just awkward (my position),
or plain nonsensical?
If it is just awkward, then I don't see a problem on basing
a simpler way of doing things on that awkward way.
>I note that your examples with {pavyseljirna} for
>{santo}, are also simple but generally wrong.
How are they wrong?
mi sisku le mi pavyseljirna
(Can be true if there is something I refer to as "my unicorn")
mi sisku lo pavyseljirna
There is some unicorn such that I'm looking for it. (Can only
be true in worlds with unicorns.)
mi sisku lo'e pavyseljirna
I seek a unicorn. (Can be true even in worlds where I have no
hope of ever finding any.)
And they strictly match what you can do with official sisku:
le mi pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
lo pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
mi sisku le ka ce'u pavyseljirna
(= mi sisku le ka lo pavyseljirna zo'u ce'u du py)
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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<<
No it gives a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa on the surface.>>
But only on the surface. Since {lo'e sincrboa} is not a referring
term, talking of "a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa" doesn't
mean much, because it suggests that there are two things being
related, which is not the case. There is only one thing, ta, and
something is predicated of that thing.
<<
>The issue
>is what does all that come down to at the bottom. I suppose that {ta pixra
>lo'e sincrboa} means something like "That presents an image which manifests
>[some condition here] visual properties associated with boas" where, with
>the
>Lojban {lo'e} the box is filled with "some visually adequate typical".
Most of that is contained in {pixra}, not in {lo'e sincrboa}.
What does it mean to say {ta pixra le vi sincrboa}? Something
like "That presents an image which manifests [some condition here]
visual properties associated with this boa here".
>>
<<
>But {pixra lo'e sincrboa} behaves
>differently and her we have to come up with some other properties, since
>the
>property of being a boa, as such, is not picturable.
If a particular boa is picturable, then boas are picturable.
There is no need to bring in other properties in the generic
case any more than in the particular case.
>>
<<
>We have to go inside
>and see what that means in visual terms.
To understand what {pixra} means, yes. But not to understand
what {lo'e sincrboa} means.
>>
<<
[{lo'e}] basically is {lo} without the quantification, but that is
not saying much, since {lo} in itself is an empty gadri. Indeed
Loglan does not have anything equivalent to it, it just uses
{su'o broda} (or often {pa broda}) where we use {lo broda}.
>>
>My question is now "what preoperties are delimited by your {lo'e sfofa} .
>If
>nothing beyond being a sofa, then this is just {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} and as
>uninteresting as cases where it amounts to nothing more than {lo sfofa}.
{tu'a lo sfofa} is either {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} or
{le du'u lo sfofa cu co'e}, neither of which would fit
as replacement in {nelci lo'e sfofa}.
>>
(I asked this question weeks ago and it was trying to puzzle out your reply that led to this mess: please give a different reply this time, so we don't have to go through ALL of this again.
<<
>{zu'i} doesn't mean "the typical value in this context," it is just
>replaced
>by the typical value in this context.
Well... I have never seen it in use, so I have started using it
to translate generic "one", as in:
i fa'a le sirji crane zu'i na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
Droit devant soi on ne peut pas aller bien loin...
(Going straight ahead, one can't go very far...)
>>
<<
That of course is not meant to be replaced by a typical value.
>>
<<
{zu'i} in the sense of "one" is not bindable to {da}.
>>
<<
I would say that the only relevant property for {lo'e broda} is
lo ka ce'u broda, just as it is the only relevant property for
{lo broda} or for {lo'i broda}. They are all different ways of
dealing with the same class.
>>
I don't really think you mean this. But I don't think you have thought through what you do mean in practical terms. Get back to this topic when you ahve.
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<<
Would you say that official {sisku} is just awkward (my position),
or plain nonsensical?
>>
<<
If it is just awkward, then I don't see a problem on basing
a simpler way of doing things on that awkward way.
>I note that your examples with {pavyseljirna} for
>{santo}, are also simple but generally wrong.
How are they wrong?
mi sisku le mi pavyseljirna
(Can be true if there is something I refer to as "my unicorn")
>>
<<
mi sisku lo'e pavyseljirna
I seek a unicorn. (Can be true even in worlds where I have no
hope of ever finding any.)
>>
<<
le mi pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
lo pavyseljirna zo'u mi sisku le ka ce'u du py
mi sisku le ka ce'u pavyseljirna
(= mi sisku le ka lo pavyseljirna zo'u ce'u du py)
>>
py...@aol.com
>We are left with what I take to be true and also what xorxes is trying to
>say
>regardless of how often he rejects it: {lo'e broda} for xorxes is like
>{lo'e
>broda} in Lojban in that it signals a complex hypothetical claim that
>relies
>on le du'u ce'u broda
I won't deny that until I see the complex hypothetical claim
expressed in Lojban. Unless it is so hypothetical that it can't
be expressed, in which case I have no problem with it. :)
>>
The difficulty in expressing it is Lojban is probably a major reason why we have {lo'e} at all. But I am not about to get kicked around again trying to work out Lojban hypotheticals and their kin. When someone else gets that right, I will be happy to do these in Lojban. In the meantime, I offer the English versions and a willingness to expand on any point that is unclear (well, I am not sure I can do much with "typically," but "everybody knows what that means" -- whichj is why it is so hard to expand).
<<
>and says something about the members of lo'i broda.
I think a claim using {lo'e broda} does not claim anything about
any particular member of lo'i broda, and it would make sense even
in the extreme cases when there are no members.
>>
<<
>In
>xorxes' case (barring the not yet forthcoming better story) it says what
>the
>essential features are, in Lojban what the typical features are.
I'm not sure I understand the point here. Saying {mi nelci lo'e
cakla} does not claim that my liking chocolate is essential to
chocolate (nor that it is typical of chocolate, for that matter).
It does not preclude either that my liking of chocolate comes from
my liking of what some might consider some non-essential feature
of chocolate: maybe I like chocolate because it brings back
memories of something, but bringing memories of something would not
be an essential property of chocolate. So I don't understand what
essential properties have to do with my position. The only property
involved as I see it is {le ka ce'u cakla}.
>>
It is precisely because the only property involved is le du'u ce'u cakla (and all that that entails). If other properties were involved, we would no longer be talking about the generic chocolate -- just as we are not when we shift over to "typical" or "average" or....
<<
<<
>It has the quantifier of {da} within the scope of the negation,
>so that I can't continue talking about the same "one" in the
>next sentence
> >>
>Well, CLL waffles on that, so, if you did it, no one would complain much,
>and
>you can always use {ice} rather than just {i}.
I can do it grammatically, yes. It just doesn't make any sense
logically.
>>
<<
>You can also use anaphora (if
>it is possible to use Lojban anaphora reliably): {le go'i} or {ra} or ...Or
>you can tag even {da} with {goi}.
But referring back to a bound variable outside the binding
context returns nonsense.
>>
<<
Consider for example:
noda zo'u da klama
Nobody came.
What does {le go'i} refer to? What if we express it as:
roda zo'u da naku klama
>>
And Rosta
> <<
> I think it is inaccurate to speak of "the Lojban {lo'e}" in
> distinction to xorxes's and mine. It is not perverse to construe
> the ma'oste's gloss of {lo'e} as a clumsy attempt to capture the
> notion of generic reference, and what xorxes and I have been doing
> is trying to get a handle on generic reference
> >>
> Not perverse, but not forced eithere. "the typical x" is a prefectly
> understandable and used expression in English and different from the
> "the generic x." Part of the baseline, as I understand it, is that
> the English text is to be taken as the most accurate description of
> the Lojban meaning, so I am forced to go with it.
IIRC (& perhaps I don't), Lojbab has explicitly said that this is not
so -- that his attempts at providing short glosses are not to be seen
as definitional.
Given that, "the typical x" is relatively straightforwardly rendered
by using {fadni} ("ordinary", from memory) or similar. OTOH generics
could also be rendered by some appropriate brivla with {lo'i broda}
or {tu'o du'u ce'u broda} as an argument, so it's not an issue of
sayability as much as of utility.
> Of course, the
> description of {le'e} supports the official reading, since the two
> are related in the usual o/e way.
That has never been apparent to me. Alternative stories about
le'e are equally consistent with their counterparts about lo'e.
> As I have said (back there somewhere), I think the official line is a
> mistake. We could have a more general notion (whether it is the
> generic one or not I am unsure) and handle several of these oblique
> references (typical, average, ...) by modifications within its scope.
> But that requires a relatively clear idea of the function that this
> general gadri represents. And I have laid that out -- inadequately
> so far, but plausibly in the light of the corresponding things in
> English. Meanwhile, I work around the official line.
Is there any chance you could lay this (& other things you want us
to remember) out on the wiki?
> <<
> You're right that it has not been established whether the inner
> quantifier has the status of presupposition/conventional implicature
> -- i.e. being outside what is being asserted.
>
> However, since Lojban generally does not (or never, even?) use
> presupposition/conventional implicature, the default should
> be that the inner cardinality is being asserted. That doesn't
> stop anyone adducing arguments as to why this default should be
> overridden, though.
> >>
> I take it that existence of {na'i} is itself a recognition of the
> role of presuppositions and perhaps conventional implicatures.
That's not to say that presupp is present in already-existing
Lojban, though in fact since writing the above I have cited a
couple of clear examples where it is present.
> I don't think we have any usage, but my intuition (based on English,
> and maybe other languages in their philosophical modes) is that
> getting the number wrong in this way makes any sentence, not just any
> atomic sentence, false.
>
> <<
> If there are more than one broda then {tu'o broda} is ambiguous
> -- it is underspecified, and to form an interpretation the hearer
> will have to insert a quantifier. The same goes for when there is
> only one broda. In other words, {tu'o broda} is neither true
> nor false, because it expresses an incomplete logical formula.
> >>
> I am not sure what this means: {tu'o broda}, not being a sentence
> even, is necessarily neither true nor false .
Sorry. I meant "a sentence of which {tu'o broda} is part".
> The two possibilities
> that come to mind are
> 1) that you really want this to involve a presupposition or
> implicature, neither true nor false when its "claim" fails (but it
> seems to be the same even when it is met)
> 2) that it is a flag (like {lo'e} in my mind) that the sentence as a
> whole is a fac,on de parler for some complex expression in which no
> one piece matches the {tu'o} piece of the surface. If it is like
> {lo'e}, I would find this plausible, but that association unsupported
> so far. And I have seen nothing like an account of what the
> undrlying structure might be, by you.
I'd say I'm saying that {tu'o} is comparable to {zo'e} or {co'e}
-- a blank that has to be filled in before truth can be evaluated.
Except unlike {zo'e} and {co'e} you would tend to use it when it
doesn't really matter how the blank is filled in.
>
> <<
> Yes. It is indispensible because the syntax requires a gadri or
> quantifier to be present at the start of a sumti. Ideally it
> would be possible to omit tu'o, but the syntax won't allow it;
> it's very much analogous to the use of dummy _there_ and _it_
> in English to fill obligatory subject positions.
> >>
> OK, this is a start at what the underlying structure is, as the
> English "is" and "there" are marks for siome following complex
> structure is the real subject. What is flagged here?
{tu'o} is like dummy it/there in being a filler for a grammatical
slot that cannot be left unfilled. "It is raining", say. It's
not like it/there in being quasicataphoric.
--And.
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la pycyn cusku di'e
>I have some idea what your boa is like, but I can't paint a reliable>>
>picture
>of it yet because too many things I need to know to do a picture I don't
>know
>from knowing only that it is a boa.
Then you can't make lo pixra be le mi sincrboa, but you won't
have any trouble making lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa. There are
of course many possible pixra be lo'e sincrboa, and they don't
have to all look alike.
Sorry, I thought you meant an accurate picture of a generic boa, because, once you get away from that, it gets hard to keep up the claim that it is a pictue of a generic boa rather than something else that it is an accurate picture of. But if any old boa picture will do and we call it a picture of a generic boa, then, sure, you can picture it. Since (sniggle) the picture is is not accurate, would a picture of a viper do as well -- or almost. (I hope the answer is "No" but I will be interested to hear the reason. And if the answer is "Yes" then I throw in the towel, ther is just no talking to some people so far from the rules of language).
<<
>Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa}
I suppose you mean {se li'i}, "I'm a visual experiencer of
something being a boa".
>>
No, I meant {li'i} though I left out the {le} . Apparently the meaning has changed since the word was created by someone who lived primarily in a disembodied experiental mode.
<<
>(this also covers the {lo} case but does not entail it). Why is {lo'e} a
>no-no?
It is certainly not a no-no! {lo'e} is probably a yes-yes
anywhere {lo} is, though neither entails the other.
>>
My remark was to your claim that {viska lo'e sincrboa} made no sense, or something along that line and was intended to indicate that, were that true, {pixra loe' sincrboa} made no sense and for essentially the same reasons.
When looking up "boa," by the way, I did see a picture of one in the dictionary, presumably meant to be typical, since it had no further specific identification. I was just a black-and-white sketch, so avoided the issue of color (I don't suppose anyone will thaink that the generic boa is white, though boas are in an albino sequence, I think).
<<
>If I can paint it, I can see it surely.
Not always, but in the case of boas yes, certainly.
>>
So {viska lo'e boa} does make sense. Different from {viska lo boa}? (For either answer, what is special here, since generally they are different and generally generics are too abstract to be seen).
<<
> Either {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le
>frike} means "if anything were a lion, it would live in Africa," which is
>obviously false,
And not what I mean.
>>
So you do keep saying. But aside from your say-so (which is not a negligible bit of evidence, you being right most of the time about things) you have yet to give an explanation of why not, in spite of repeated opportunities and urgings.
<<
>or it means (I have to unpack some more) "In some world
>there is something which is a lion and lives in Africa," which is -- in the
>case of lions, but not of unicorns -- of little practical value over {lo
>cinfo cu xabju le frike}.
This is not what I mean either. I don't make any claim about lions
in particular, neither in this nor in possible worlds. It's a claim
about Africa in particular and lions in general.
>>
Notice that neither of the alternatives offered makes any claims about lions in paticular -- even that some exist. So, what is wrong with them? Would it help to replace "is a lion" with "has all the essential properties of a lion"? How do you know that talk about generic lions doesn't involve particular lions, at least hypothetical particular lions, unless you know fairly completely what talk about genric lions does involve? In which case, why are you hiding this information in your bosom? It seems self-defeating as well as cruel to do this.
<<
>The problem with {pixra} is that boahood pervades too few viusal
>properties to allow a picture to be made, if it is at all representational
>(and if it is not, anything goes and I have to take your word for what it
>represents and by what coding, so almost any visual image will do and the
>whole becomes really uninteresting).
So you probably would not agree that Saint-Exupéry's picture is
lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa poi ba'o tunlo lo xanto. You don't
have to take _my_ word, you have to take the word of the speakers
of the language in question: English in the case of "boa" and
Lojban in the case of {sincrboa}, though for these words there
shouldn't be much deviation from language to language, probably
more variation within English itself.
>>
I don't have Exy's stuff to hand, so I don't know what picture you are talking about. But, since we are now -- in spite of all manner of hazards -- allowing inaccurate pictures to count, I don't see any reason to deny it -- unless it is too far off (to a viper, say, or a newt) I would certainly (with the same conditions) be willing to say that it is a picture of a boa (if it is, that is) and allow it to do business as a generic (rather than a typical) boa (though I would probably like the caveats spelled out -- "mind the color and the size and the exact marking pattern and...")
<<
><<
>I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas.
>I did say it deals with particular events.
> >>
>invlve a particular sofa?
For example: {le nu mi nitcu lo'e sfofa cu purci}
"My needing a sofa is in the past".
>>
Which (though ill-formed) involves a particular sofa, of course, though not one in this world, assuming it makes any sense at all. When did you ever need a generic sofa? You needed a sofa and did not care about the particulars, perhaps, but that is a very different thing. What would you do with a generic sofa -- you can't sit on it or use if for decor (it has no color nor pattern nor cushion density). In short, this seems no different from {le nu mi nitcu tu'a lo sfofa cu purci} is it is sensible at all. You are, apparently, going to say that it is not right because it involved {lo sfofa} byt notice that it does not say anything about an particular sofa(s) -- even that there are some (well, it says there are some in another world but it is hard to deal with essential properties wihtout other worlds, so that can't be the problem either.) We can do away with {lo sfofa} and talk about things with all the essential properties of sofas, satisfying the sense of {sfofa} -- but those are just sofas.
<<
le nu mi nitcu lo'e sfofa is a particular event involving sofas
that does not involve a particular sofa.
>>
So is le nu mi nitcu tu'a lo sfofa, unless you mean by "involve a particular sofa" "contains the words {lo sfofa}" (which, note, even as it stands, is not about a particular sofa -- that is {le sfofa}). But the words occur in an opaque, intensional, whatever context which prescisely cuts them off from any reference to any particulars -- as witness the lack of quantifier binding. "But they are particular in some other world" (two moves removed from this one). Maybe, but the other world is such an abstraction that it is hard to see what they are particular in that world" would mean.
<<
I don't see any problem with liking an event. I think
{mi nelci le nu da sfofa} is a perfectly legitimate thing
to say. I just don't agree that {mi nelci lo'e sfofa}
is equivalent to {mi nelci lo nu lo sfofa cu co'e}. They
are both meaningful, but different.
>>
As always, in what way? I don't see it. But then, I don't know what {mi nelci lo'e sfofa} means. The situations the two describe seem to me to be exactly the same. At least, I would normally say {mi nelci tu'a lo sfofa} for the situation you describe as being what {mi nelci lo'e sfofa} describes, unless you have failed to mention (or cleverly hidden) some detail that makes the difference. But I can't figure out what detail it would be that involved -- moe than it already is -- the sense of {sfofa}.
<<
I don't feel discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa cu co'e}.
I don't think {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} is wrong.
I prefer {nelci lo'e sfofa} for "liking sofas".
{tu'a sfofa} is much more ambiguous than {lo'e sfofa}.
In some context {tu'a lo sfofa} could mean "doing it on the sofa"
for example, something which {lo'e sfofa} cannot mean.
>>
Why the preference? What does it say that the othere doesn't? The ambiguity of {tu'a lo sfofa} is the ambiguity of {co'e}, but at least whe know what the range is there. But we -- I certainly and you i\by implication from the fact that you won't tell -- hae no idea what {lo'e sfofa} means . Why does it exclude doing it on the sofa -- we are never told, even by implication, what you like lo'e sfofa FOR and yet things aren't like in isolation, but for something, even if it is only a rosey glow.
<<
>Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since
>everything is on the same level in Lojban.
I think {fasnu} and {dacti} are not synonymous. To that extent
at least nu-things are not at the same level as sofa-things.
>>
{mlatu} and {gerku} aren't synonymous either -- which is on the higher level of abstaction?
<<
>And your case is ultimately
>talking about the properties of a sofa, not about sofas
I guess we will never agree about that.
>>
OK, your case is talking about sofas. So why the big insistence that it is so different from other ways of talking about sofas. I think it is, mind you, but this suggests that you don't.
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And Rosta
> la and cusku di'e
>
> >So how would you do "The [generic] lion lives in Africa"?
>
> I think I would say:
>
> lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko
>
> to say that Africa has lions. I agree that {loi} would work
> just as well here, and so would {lo}.
Fair enough. Let me change the example:
"Humans give birth to live young."
The intended meaning is that this is part of what it is to be
human; it is an ingredient of humanness.
> Now, if the meaning is that Afrika is the only relevant place
> where lions live, I would say:
>
> lo'e cinfu cu xabju le friko po'o
>
> Only Africa is inhabited by lions: The lion lives (only) in Africa.
> {loi} and {lo} would not work here due to scope issues. We would
> need to put {le friko po'o} in front of the {su'o} quantifier to
> get the right sense:
>
> le friko po'o cu se xabju loi cinfo
Not the meaning I was trying to get. I'll just comment (i) that I
dislike using {po'o} for "only", and (ii) that I think you example
should be {le friko ku po'o}.
> >I'm not suggesting that as a satisfactory substitute for lo'e;
> >I'm suggesting it as a way of making explicit what lo'e is
> >short for. For instance, "ko'a cinfo" can be said as
> >"tu'o du'u ce'u da cinfo ku ckaji ko'a" -- there you're
> >talking about lions yet referring to the Lion intension,
> >so it's not impossible, even if it is not the way you'd
> >ordinarily want to express it.
>
> Ok, I think {lo'e broda} cannot be expanded in terms of
> {su'o da} or {ro da}. It could be done with {zu'i poi}
> but that doesn't help you. If you accept {tu'o} then it
> might just be that {lo'e broda} = {tu'o lo broda}.
But can it be expanded using a locution involving {tu'o
du'u ce'u broda}?
> >OK. Once you've persuaded pc you'll have to said about
> >persuading everyone else; it's the one xorxesism I've
> >never bought.
>
> I'm sure there were others, some which you persuaded me
> to abandon.
This one stands out, not just because it's currently under
discussion. I actually can't think of anything else, except
maybe I feel that like everybody else you overuse "le".
--And.
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And Rosta
> la and cusku di'e
>
> >Jorge could give us a canonical list of examples using {lo'e}.
>
> I don't think I could give a canonical list. The examples
> we've been using are things like {nelci lo'e cakla},
> {nitcu lo'e tanxe}, {pixra lo'e sincrboa}, {simsa lo'e sfofa},
> {claxu lo'e rebla}, etc. those are useful, but {lo'e} makes
> sense in any position where {lo} does.
What I was hoping for was a list of exx where there is no obvious
alternative to using lo'e.
> What do you think of the explanation of {broda lo'e brode}
> in terms of {kairbroda}?
I have to ponder it further.
But my sense is indeed that {lo'e broda cu brode} = {tu'o du'u
ce'u broda ku ckaji zei brode}. But I'm not yet sure whether
the semantic relationship between {brode} and {ckaji zei brode}
is regular, or whether it varies depending on what brode is.
--And.
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--part1_71.25778b7c.2ab3736f_boundary
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In a message dated 9/13/2002 8:16:49 AM Central Daylight Time,
jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:
<<
> "lo'e
> >cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which
> >seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",
> >though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to
> >express adequately in Lojban.
>
> You're right! I think this points to why the best examples
> of {lo'e} don't have it in x1: because in English x1 corresponds
> to the subject, and the subject is something about which we
> say something, and this is not what happens with {lo'e}.
> (Indeed bringing {lo} to the subject position by fronting
> to the prenex is the best way to show the inadequacy of {lo} in
> these cases.) {lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu} still works for
> "cats catch mice", as there is nothing being referred to in
> this case, I think
>>
Strictly, fronting brings the {lo ...} to topic position, but the point is
the same: it's what we are talking about. Whence (though I couldn't
formulate it then) x1 senntences being paradigms of talking about.
<<
. My contention
is that {lo'e cinfo} cannot be expressed as {le broda}
or {lo broda} for any broda, just like {zi'o} cannot be
replaced by any {le broda} or {lo broda}.
>>
Cant be expressed *as* {lo/le broda} for sure. But the ultimate unpacking
will almost surely involve both expressions of that form and intensional
contexts. So, stop with the {zi'o} examples finally. They just don't fit the
case in any way, shape, or form.
<<
I don't mind my debate with pc, indeed it helps me to
clarify at least to myself if not to him what I mean.
I think my use of {lo'e} has enough in common with
the gloss "the typical" (even if it's not the perfect
gloss) that I can use it. And I think it would be much
harder to get anyone else to accept a new cmavo than to
accept my usage of {lo'e}.
>>
I agree with you about the value of the discussion -- now that it is, I
think, almost at an end (I admit I had my doubts in the middle when we seemed
to be going around in ruts). And I agree with your summary position. All I
need now is to learn just how your {lo'e} differs from "the typical." "The
generic" doesn't help much (and is &'s, not yours, so far as I can see).
--part1_71.25778b7c.2ab3736f_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2>In a message dated 9/13/2002 8:16:49 AM Central Daylight Time, jjlla...@hotmail.com writes:<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">"lo'e<BR>
>cinfo cu xabji le friko" would be "Africa is lion-inhabited", which<BR>
>seems to me not the same as "The [generic] lion lives in Africa",<BR>
>though each of the two different meanings is a challenge to<BR>
>express adequately in Lojban.<BR>
<BR>
You're right! I think this points to why the best examples<BR>
of {lo'e} don't have it in x1: because in English x1 corresponds<BR>
to the subject, and the subject is something about which we<BR>
say something, and this is not what happens with {lo'e}.<BR>
(Indeed bringing {lo} to the subject position by fronting<BR>
to the prenex is the best way to show the inadequacy of {lo} in<BR>
these cases.) {lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu} still works for<BR>
"cats catch mice", as there is nothing being referred to in<BR>
this case, I thin</BLOCKQUOTE>k</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
>><BR>
Strictly, fronting brings the {lo ...} to topic position, but the point is the same: it's what we are talking about. Whence (though I couldn't formulate it then) x1 senntences being paradigms of talking about.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">. My contention<BR>
is that {lo'e cinfo} cannot be expressed as {le broda}<BR>
or {lo broda} for any broda, just like {zi'o} cannot be<BR>
replaced by any {le broda} or {lo broda}.<BR>
>> <BR>
Cant be expressed *as* {lo/le broda} for sure. But the ultimate unpacking will almost surely involve both expressions of that form and intensional contexts. So, stop with the {zi'o} examples finally. They just don't fit the case in any way, shape, or form.<BR>
<BR>
<<<BR>
I don't mind my debate with pc, indeed it helps me to<BR>
clarify at least to myself if not to him what I mean.<BR>
I think my use of {lo'e} has enough in common with<BR>
the gloss "the typical" (even if it's not the perfect<BR>
gloss) that I can use it. And I think it would be much<BR>
harder to get anyone else to accept a new cmavo than to<BR>
accept my usage of {lo'e}.<BR>
>><BR>
I agree with you about the value of the discussion -- now that it is, I think, almost at an end (I admit I had my doubts in the middle when we seemed to be going around in ruts). And I agree with your summary position. All I need now is to learn just how your {lo'e} differs from "the typical." "The generic" doesn't help much (and is &'s, not yours, so far as I can see). </FONT></HTML>
Lionel Vidal
> To me {da zo'u broda tu'a da} makes
> a different klaim than {broda tu'a da}, where the quantification
> of {da} is within the {tu'a} abstraction. I don't know how
> you can defend the {tu'a} expressions for intensional contexts
> if you don't think so.
I am lost here: I thought the grammar said clearly that in
{da zo'u broda tu'a da} the {da zo'u} could be freely omitted
with no change in semantic, and so I don't see how
{broda tu'a da} could claim a different thing, intensional contexts
or not. Or maybe I fail to read an other discussion where you
agree on redefining this grammar point in intensional contexts.
Could you give an example with true selbris where the two have
to be different?
> We can now give a precise definition of {broda} in terms
> of {kairbroda}:
> ko'a broda ko'e = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du ko'e
> ko'a is broda to ko'e = ko'a is broda to something that
> has the property of being ko'e
I don't understand your use of {tu'o} here. Is that what makes
{du'u ce'u du k'oe} a true property? Or to say it differently,
how do you get a property out of a predication abstraction?
Sorry if my questions sound too basic: I am just trying to
follow the discussion and understand the different point of
views, being well aware that my lojban current understanding
may be inapropriate.
mu'omi'e lioNEL
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