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Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:16:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
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Sorting out thwe quantification in the English, making all the dependencies 
overt, is quite a puzzle in itself.  Doing it in Lojban is markedly worse, since 
we have to grok just what goes into all those blank spaces in a way that English 
apparently does not (or we are more experienced in grokking).  Presumably we end 
up with something like "For every movie x for every occasion y if y is not the 
first occasion of my seeing x and y is an occasion of my seeing x, then for 
every occasion z, if z is earlier than y and an occasion of my viewing x, I 
understand more of the dialog in x on y than I did on z."  Now, what can we 
reduce down to "kinds" or "generics" here?  Well, maybe movies taken 
conjunctively, maybe; but then nothing else, since every other term depends back 
on movies, just as the quantifiers say.
{zo'e} has to be a constant, not a variable, because, otherwise, {mi na zarci} 
in the stock example would mean "I don't go anywhere", rather than "I don't go 
to the store".  On the other hand, it seems it must be a variable (implicit and 
longish scope) else we cannot explain something like the above long case, 
getting the movie and its dialog coordinated.  We could, of course, in this case 
take the missing {zo'e} to pick up {lo skina}, but with a different distribution 
pattern, but that is sure to miss the point, since we have no guarantee that (in 
the disjunctive distribution, the obvious case) the dialog I understand better 
is from the movie I am seeing again (actual cases of this sort occur -- someone 
in a movie says something that suddenly shed light on what someone else said in 
another movie -- happens all the time with me and Britflix).  So, I think we are 
back to what I want when I want it and then try to figure out the pragmatics of 
how that plays out in fact and what effect order and the like have on it, 
especially with reference to quantifiers, negation, modality and other "kinds" 
expressions.


From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, September 24, 2011 10:02:46 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

* Thursday, 2011-09-22 at 17:01 -0700 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:

> What?  Why would anything ignore a universal quantifier if it in some
> way depended on it.  Or a particuolar for that matter, since Skolem
> functions depend on the constants as well as the bound variables.  The
> shift is simply one of context: the fact that the interesting movie in
> Snow White clearly affects what dialog I'm going to get better.  If
> you insist, then the {zo'e} there are to "that movie", which blocks
> the shift for lack of a primary reference outside.

Well, the current xorlo proposal explicitly has a lo inside a quantifier
ignoring the quantifier:

"""
Any term without an explicit outer quantifier is a
constant, i.e. not a quantified term. This means that it
refers to one or more individuals, and changing the order
in which the constant term appears with respect to a
negation or with respect to a quantified term will not
change the meaning of the sentence. A constant is
something that always keeps the same referent or
referents. For example {lo broda} always refers to brodas.
"""

The possibility of {ro da lo broda be da brode} makes it impossible to
take the above paragraph wholly literally. xorxes at least seemed to
want this to be the only exception.

In xorxes' system, however, things aren't really as simple as this talk
of constancy might make them seem. According to my current understanding
of xorxes' system: the constant given by {lo} is often a kind, and kind
predication often resolves as existential quantification. When the kind
predication is within the scope of a quantifier, the domain of the
existential quantification can vary.

So for example, I think the skina sentence actually does make sense in
xorxes' system, contrary to my first impressions. It's roughly of the
form

{ro skina zo'u co'e lo so'i se cusku}

which becomes, in hopefully understandable notation,

FA s:skina(s). co'e(KIND X:(cusku(zo'e,X) /\ so'imei(X)))

(X a plural variable, i.e. not restricted to atoms)
and the kind predication gets in this case an existential reading:

FA s:skina(s). EX X\in C_s. co'e(X),
    where FA X\in C_s. (cusku(zo'e,X) /\ so'imei(X)))

xorxes would probably dispute the exact form of that last step, but
would I think agree with the basic idea that the witnesses can depend on
s.

(The actual sentence involves a {ca}, but I think the same logic
applies)


> Do you mean "bridi"{ rather than "selbri" here (not that I expect you
> can be sure, since the terminology is so screwed up)?

Actually, I meant the syntactic production referred to as 'selbri' in
the formal grammars. i.e. we're talking here about the second
alternation in sumti-5, which in PEG is
quantifier selbri (KU free*)? (relative-clauses)?

> So far as I can tell, you are the one who comes closest to thinking
> {zo'e} is a Skilem function, or, at least, a particular quantifier.
> I don't think it ever is and I don't see xorxes claiming that either.
> It is what I want it to be or would want if I thought about the
> matter.
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Thu, September 22, 2011 6:45:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
> variable
> 
> * Wednesday, 2011-09-21 at 08:16 -0700 - John E Clifford 
><kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> 
> > I am probably obtuse (as well as abstruse), but I don't see the
> > problems here.  In the ckina sentence, the {lo} phrases are all in the
> > scope of the universal quantifier on events and so are defined for
> > each particular case as need be, different bunches for different
> > contexts.
> 
> But wasn't one of the main selling-points of xorlo that {lo} ignores
> such scope issues?
> 
> I assumed the rule you were going for was that {lo [selbri]} gives
> a Skolem function whose only arguments are the quantified variables
> which literally appear in the selbri, as in {broda ro da lo broda be
> da}.
> 
> If not that, then what rule?
> 
> > I can't comment on {zo'e} since I don't know what it means,
> > but in most of the readings, including the quantifier version,
> > negation doesn't seem to be a problem. What problems there are, if
> > any, seem to be with picking that interpretation of {zo'e} (I'm not
> > sure that there is a universally acceptable interpretation -- why
> > I prefer {zi'o}).
> 
> I'm not really sure what you mean here. But the point was that if we
> want zo'e to have the obvious meaning in
> 
> A: xu do pu klama su'o zarci
> B: mi na klama
> 
> (and I just did a quick poll on irc, which seemed to confirm that some
> quite experienced lojban speakers expect zo'e to work this way),
> then zo'e can't be a simple Skolem function if we keep everything else
> simple (by which I mean: no funny business with kinds, or distributive
> predication).
> 
> Martin
> 
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
> > To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> > Sent: Tue, September 20, 2011 7:07:57 PM
> > Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
> > variable
> > 
> > (posting here for now; feel free not to read if theorising annoys you)
> > 
> > * Tuesday, 2011-09-20 at 09:19 -0700 - John E Clifford 
><kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> > 
> > > We seem to be in a three-way cross-purpose conversation.  As far as
> > > I can understand, for xorxes {lo broda} refers to broda-kind,
> > > a something or other (xorxes has always had trouble when we get down
> > > to defining it) which has individual brodas as manifestations
> > > (avatars, etc.).
> > >
> > > MB seems usually to think {lo broda} is down up broda, the set (C-?)
> > > of brodas assigned to the world of the present conversation by the
> > > function which is the meaning of {broda}. which world he seems also to
> > > define in a fairly restricted way, a situation.
> > 
> > I wouldn't agree with that summary.
> > 
> > The C was an attempt to get directly at certain uses of {zo'e} and {lo}
> > which involve, effectively, existential quantification. There was not
> > intended to be any funny business with intensionality - the expansion to
> > the existential was meant to be done in a world, so in particular
> > C would depend on the world. (Which may sound at first like funny
> > business, but hopefully not at second.)
> > 
> > Xorxes would prefer to explain these existential uses of {zo'e} and {lo}
> > by going via kinds. He might prefer not to put it in those terms,
> > however.
> > 
> > JC would, if I understand correctly, explain them by appealing to
> > disjunctive predication - i.e. we have a plural predication which
> > resolves itself as a disjunction over atoms.
> > 
> > > I think {lo broda} refers to a L-set of brodas (or just a bunch of
> > > them, without the set-talk) selected by the context.
> > 
> > When you talk of L-sets and bunches, I am taking you to mean that we are
> > working in a domain like Chierchia's - essentially an atomic boolean
> > algebra - and an L-set/bunch is a not-necessarily-atomic element of the
> > domain.
> > 
> > My only problem with having {lo broda}, and indeed {zo'e}, give simply
> > Skolem functions with value one of these bunches is that they are often
> > used in expressions which seem to be about usual individuals rather than
> > kinds, but whose meanings can't be explained by this treatment of {lo}
> > and {zo'e} without going via kinds or introducing distributive
> > predication. Since I consider routing via kinds to be something of
> > a hack, and don't really understand how the hack works in general, and
> > consider distributive predication for this purpose even more of a hack,
> > I was hoping for another approach.
> > 
> > Examples of such usage:
> > For {zo'e}, pretty much any negated sentence.
> > For {lo}, the skina sentence from the gadri BPFK section page,
> > which I mentioned in a previous mail, will do:
> > {ca ro nu mi rere'u catlu lo skina kei mi cpacu lo so'i se cusku poi mi
> > na cpacu ca lo pamoi}
> > 
> > I've no real idea how to explain that using kinds...
> > 
> > Similarly for many of the other sentences on that page.
> > 
> > > When it comes to using these different definitions, we generally get
> > > about the same results, but some definitions appear to require more
> > > mechanisms than others.  (I have passed over xorxes' insistence on
> > > bringing in person segments necessarily along with persons and his
> > > contrarian refusal to have brodas along with broda kind in the
> > > universe of a discussion).
> > >
> > > They are also terminologically unified in that both MB 's and my view
> > > would hold that the maximal set of brodas in a given situation is
> > > broda-kind in that situation,
> > 
> > Not really... I'm currently understanding kinds as Chierchia does:
> > they're actual atoms in our universe, and predications which involve
> > only kinds are true in all worlds or none.
> 
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