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Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:34:29 +0000
From: And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
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Martin Bays, On 03/11/2011 23:49:
> * Saturday, 2011-10-29 at 20:59 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:
>> Martin Bays, On 29/10/2011 18:28:
>>> * Saturday, 2011-10-29 at 17:05 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:
>>>> Martin Bays, On 29/10/2011 01:14:
>>>>> I'm saying that the definition of {cinfo} is
>>>>> "x1 is a lion/[lioness] of species/breed x2", and that I wouldn't wan=
t
>>>>> to change this.
>>>>
>>>> We're all saying this much.
>>>
>>> If you were actually saying that Lion is a lion, it would be the meanin=
g
>>> of English we were disagreeing on! So I hope you aren't.
>>
>> Given that English allows us to speak of "a lion" that you would
>> consider to not count as a lion, and to speak of "an Obama" that you
>> would not consider to count as an Obama, we do seem now to be
>> disagreeing about the meaning of English.
>
> OK, so I agree that "is a lion" can sometimes be used of kinds of lions.
> I was forgetting this.
>
> I'm not sure it can be used of Lion itself, though.

A difficulty I have in this discussion is that you have defined various not=
ions, such as 'Lion', 'kinds', 'mundanes', but we lack a clear mutual under=
standing of them. Furthermore, you are using these notions metalinguistical=
ly but arguing they don't have a place in Lojban and are supposing me to be=
 arguing that they do have a place in Lojban, whereas I don't really unders=
tand the import of the metalinguistic terms, and hence don't believe myself=
 to be arguing the notions have a place in Lojban.
 =20
> It's an unusual meaning of "is a lion", and I would be surprised if the
> authors of the gismu list had it in mind... but nevermind.

I'm certainly not supposing that any gismu  have meanings radically differe=
nt from what the authors intended.
 =20
> To fix the metalanguage: I'll continue to use "is a lion" and "are
> lions" as if this ambiguity in english didn't exist - I always mean
> actual individual lions.

I still think that you have framed the debate in terms different from what =
actually underlies the debate. I don't see a problem in saying that lions, =
or cinfo, are individual lions, but we seem to have different understanding=
s of what an individual lion is. As for actual lions, I'm not sure what is =
meant by 'actual' here, but at first glance I see no reason not to accept t=
hat all lions, and all cinfo, are actual lions.
 =20
>>>>> If I understand you correctly, that does mean that I am saying what y=
ou
>>>>> say I'm saying.
>>>>
>>>> I was making a sincere attempt to attribute to you a view I believe
>>>> you do hold, but I don't think it follows from your belief that
>>>> {cinfo} means"x1 is a lion/[lioness] of species/breed x2".
>>>
>>> In my (perhaps naive) understanding of english, the use of "a" in
>>> "a lion" invokes some individuation of precisely the kind we seem to be
>>> arguing about; i.e. we can't use "a lion" to refer to an entity which
>>> can also be seen as comprising multiple lions (Banach-Tarski aside,
>>> please).
>>
>> Well, obviously there are generics like "a lion has four legs", and
>> then there are things like "We were talking about a lion. Which lion?
>> The lion in my garden each day.",
>
> I don't think that one works - a reasonable response would be "are you
> sure it was the same lion each day?"

That might be a reasonable response, but "No" is also a reasonable answer. =
The description doesn't entail it's the same lion each day.
 =20
>>>>> I still don't think I understand your setup. Do you have different
>>>>> entities to handle these different cases? e.g. would you actually use
>>>>> multiple lions in the lion-hunting example, rather than Lion doing
>>>>> different things in different places? But use Lion for the daily lion=
?
>>>>
>>>> Yes. For Gricean reasons, rather than truth-conditional necessity.
>>>
>>> OK. And the "individuative cmavo" discussed below would be how you
>>> disambiguate between these two meanings of {cinfo}? Or have you some
>>> other way to refer explicitly to Lion rather than some lions, or vice
>>> versa?
>>
>> It'd be the individuative cmavo. I guess the one you call "Lion" is
>> used where X is a lion and Y is a lion but you don't know (or don't
>> say) whether X =3D Y.
>
> Err. Maybe. I don't think I understand you there.

Well, I was just groping towards trying to get an understanding of what Lio=
n is.

> But if you mean to consider kinds as equivalence classes of mundanes
> ("imaginary elements", in mathematical logic jargon), I may be with you.

Explain a bit further, and then I might be able to say whether this is what=
 I mean.

I don't know what equivalence classes and imaginary elements are, but if th=
ey're what you get in situations where broda(X) and broda(Y), but you don't=
 know or choose not to say whether X=3DY, then maybe I'm saying that whenev=
er you say broda(Z), Z is one of these equivalence classes thingos.

> (Although I'm not sure this wouldn't end up being effectively equivalent
> to considering them as bunches)
>
> In any case: as I'm understanding it, Lion is an entity which somehow
> corresponds to the unary predicate "x is a lion" (where recall that
> I mean by this that x is an actual lion, not a kind of lions!). I'm
> a bit vague on what its properties should be, but xorxes' usage seems to
> agree with the simple rule: if "lions [do/are something]" is true in
> english, then Lion does/is it too.

As I suggested in my last message, maybe your Lion is, in my terms, what yo=
u get when you take the bunch of all lions, but don't know or choose not to=
 say whether or not they're all the same lion. I'd say all bunches work tha=
t way: you don't know or choose not to say whether or not they're all the s=
ame individual.

>> And the one you'd want is where the speaker is
>> certain how many distinct lions there are, based on maximizing
>> spatially distinct lions, minimizing temporally distinct lions, and
>> whichever other criteria deal with cases like "the lion(s) we each
>> spoke about" (where we each speak about one lion) and so forth.
>
> Something like that. Whether or not we can define it precisely, and
> whether or not we'd agree on edge-cases, I think we both know what the
> difference between one lion and two lions is.

Sure, we know what the difference between one lion and two lions is. But th=
ere are these cases where you can't tell the difference. And I think that t=
hese cases in which the speaker can't tell the difference should be general=
ized into a case where for whatever reason the speaker doesn't tell the dif=
ference.
 =20
>>>>> So your individuative cmavo would be something like classifiers?
>>>>
>>>> I guess so, but I hesitate to venture to delineate a scheme whose
>>>> primary purpose is to satisfy your requirements, given that you have
>>>> a better understanding of your requirements than I do.
>>>
>>> Well... you seem to acknowledge that it's useful to be able to talk
>>> about lions as well as Lion; so if we are to have e.g. {lo cinfo} often
>>> refer to Lion, wouldn't it be rather helpful to have an explicit way to
>>> go from Lion to lions?
>>
>> Provided that the default is to allow speakers to be vague and
>> unspecified, then yes I think it would be good to have ways of being
>> explicit about criteria for individuation.I don't see there being
>> a simple dichotomy between kinds and nonkinds, though.
>
> Is a lion a kind? If so, what are its exemplars?
>
> Ah, I recall your answer: lion-stages.
>
> OK; is a lion-stage a kind? If so, what are its exemplars?

Further lion-stages. Or, as xorxes suggested in his reply, different spatia=
l aspects. Or, the lion-stage-that-I-described and the lion-stage-that-you-=
described. And so on -- subtypes may be  differentiated in all sorts of way=
s, not just spatiotemporal ones.
 =20
>>> OK, so it seems we now have three proposed methods of handling this kin=
d
>>> of situation:
>>>
>>> (i) JC's bunches approach - there are only lions and other perilous
>>>       objects; Lion and Perilousness are maximal(ish?) bunches of such;
>>>       disambiguation is through the tense system (e.g. {lo ka'e ckape},
>>>       maybe)
>>> (ii) Using abstractions - e.g. Perilousness doesn't ckape, but it does
>>>       ka ckape; Lion doesn't cinfo, but it does ka cinfo and it does
>>>       ckape; lions cinfo and ckape.
>>> (iii) (being my probably inaccurate understanding of your suggestion)
>>>       Like (ii) but the other way up: Lion is basic; an individuating
>>>       cmavo gets us down to lions. Similarly Perilousness is basic, and
>>>       (multiple? repeated?) cmavo can get us down either to Lion or all
>>>       the way to lions. Sometimes (i.e. in some contexts) only Lion
>>>       cinfos, while sometimes it's lions which cinfo; both ckape when
>>>       they're around, but sometimes only Perilousness ckapes (presumabl=
y
>>>       only when neither Lion nor any lions are around, although
>>>       individuating cmavo can summon them into being).
>>>
>>> But am I understanding correctly that you actually favour:
>>>
>>> (iv) Like (iii) but without the individuating cmavo - we can glork from
>>>       context whether we're talking about lions or Lion or Perilousness=
.
>>> ?
>>
>> Let me leave Perilousness to one side, since I'm not sure what it means =
here.
>>
>> I'm not advocating (ii).
>
> Do you see anything particular wrong with it?

I think it remains to be decided if something that *is* the property of bei=
ng a lion is dangerous, which is what (ii) seems to say. My current positio=
n is that the property of being a lion is not dangerous.

If Lion is not a lion, but is the property of being a lion, then I can only=
 conclude that "Lion" does not denote anything that I am arguing in support=
 of.

>> If the difference between (i), (iii) and (iv) is that in (i)
>> disambiguation is by tense, in (iii) disambiguation is by special
>> individuating cmavo, and in (iv) disambiguation is solely by glorking,
>> then I reject (i) because I don't see how it could work,
>
> Do you see that it couldn't work?

Yes. If {ko'a broda ko'e} you'd want to disambiguate both the criteria by w=
hich ko'a counts as a single broda (be ko'e) and the criteria by which ko'e=
 counts as a single se broda (be ko'a). I don't see how the tense system co=
uld do that.

>> and favour (iii)
>
> There is a reason to prefer a bottom-up approach like (i) or (ii) to the
> top-down approach of (iii). Although the path may in some cases be
> tortured, it does seem that the properties of kinds are eventually
> derived from the properties of their exemplars; but the converse is
> false.

I understood the difference between (i) and (iii) to principally involve wh=
ether it is the predicate/predication that is marked with a disambiguator o=
r whether it is the predicate-place that is marked with a disambiguator.

Any disambiguation schmeme also faces the problem that wWhere broda(X) and =
broda(Y), there is a potentially infinite number of different ways of decid=
ing that X is or is not Y, so I guess the scheme would need to be suitably =
open-ended and expandable.
 =20
>> if only because you have thought deeply about (iv) and find it
>> unsatisfactory. If i were to consider only my needs and not yours,
>> (iv) would suffice.
>
> Then again, maybe you have a (v) to suggest?

I don't have a clear enough sense of what would satisfy you. I think for li=
ons and Obama I might have a clear sense, but I don't know how to generaliz=
e that to a usable scheme.

>>> Martin Bays, On 19/10/2011 06:11:
>>>> * Wednesday, 2011-10-19 at 04:59 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com=
>:
>>>>> Martin Bays, On 18/10/2011 04:26:
>>>>>>>>> For example, {na ku lo cinfo cu zvati lo mi purdi}
>>>>>>>>> has at least the two following meanings in terms of actual lions:
>>>>>>>>> 1. {lo cinfo} is interpreted as a plurality of mundane lions, giv=
ing
>>>>>>>>> roughly:
>>>>>>>>>          For L some (contextually relevant) lions: \not in(L, my =
garden)
>>>>>>>>> (which probably means that there exists a lion among L which is n=
ot in
>>>>>>>>> my garden)
>>>>>>>>> 2. {lo cinfo} is interpreted as the kind Lions, giving
>>>>>>>>>          \not in(Lions, my garden)
>>>>>>>>> which is then resolved existentially, giving
>>>>>>>>>          \not \exists l:lion(l). in(l, my garden) .
>>>>>>> Sorry, I was unclear. I meant that English seems to allow only
>>>>>>> reading (2), and that the same might go for Lojban.
>>>>>> Ah! Have {lo} *only* able to get kinds, you mean?
>>>>> Yes. With anything that looks like a 'mundane' reconceived as a kind.
>>>>
>>>> So how would you rule out interpretation 1 in the above?
>>>
>>> By whatever rules out "it is not the case that Obama is in my garden"
>>> or "it is not the case that chlorine is in my garden" from being true
>>> in a circumstance in which some (but not all) Obama/chlorine is in my
>>> garden. I suppose the principle is that referents are treated as atoms
>>> rather than as complexes some bits of which do broda and other bits of
>>> which don't necessarily broda; but I'm really only thinking aloud in
>>> saying this.
>>
>> I don't understand how this fits with your
>> whole-sort-of-general-mish-mash metaphysics and {lo} handling.
>
> Maybe there's a resolution in there somewhere?

Is {na ku la bitlz cu zvati lo mi purdi} ambiguous? Could it be true if Rin=
go is in my garden but John isn't? If you could formulate general rules for=
 {la}, they'd also apply to {lo}. But I don't know if one can formulate gen=
eral rules -- these are difficult philosophical questions beyond the scope =
of linguistic semantics.

--And.

--=20
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