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Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2011 10:10:24 -0500
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
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* Sunday, 2011-11-06 at 05:16 -0800 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com=
>:

> Le'see.  I think I understand what is going on here.  Let me say it out f=
or=20
> corrections and then I can get on (though I will comment on this understa=
nding=20
> now).

Let me summarise from my own (entirely neutral, natch) perspective.

And and xorxes are indeed putting forward their SAE-denying metaphysics.
I don't think they'd say that lionness cinfos, though. They might say
that e.g. kinds of lion kinds do.

I was pointing out that one consequence of such a metaphysics is the
presence of effective ambiguities in quantifier scope, much like those
in english. They seem to think that this isn't a problem, because they
are only *effective* ambiguities.

e.g. {su'o ctuca cu tavla ro le tadni}, uttered in a context in which we
might utter "A professor talked to all the students", can be taken two
ways. It could be the EA statement that there was a single (mundane)
professor who talked to all the students. But it could be the EA
statement that there was a single *kind* of professor who talked to all
the students. The latter would hold under e.g. the AE assumption that
each student was talked to by some logic professor.

(just the kind 'Professor' would work in place of the kind
"logic professors" in principle, but xorxes has some informal rules
which would block the former in this sentence)

So we end up with something much like the AE vs EA ambiguity of the
english, but for different reasons.

(maybe... although actually I wonder whether this sort of phenomenon
couldn't be an explanation for such ambiguities in english?).


The jargon is an attempt to find a way for lojban to use kinds while
avoiding these effective ambiguities. The mechanism was suggested by And
and taken up (and linked to pre-existing notions) by me. The basic idea
is simple: it adds a second way to get from usual things to unusual
things. The first way is to form bunches of things. The second way is to
perform a baloney-slicing. i.e. we take some (predicate defining some)
things, e.g. hats (mapku), and we quotient by some equivalence relation,
i.e. we apply a new notion of equality, i.e. we slice at some angle. We
then take a bunch of these slices, and say that this can be a referent
of e.g. {lo mapku}. So e.g. it could be a bunch of styles of hat
(berets, bowlers and baseball caps, each considered as a single entity),
or it might be a bunch of colours of hat (red hats and turquoise hats),
or whatever.

We call the slices imaginaries, but we could also just call them slices.

The default semantics is that bunches are conjunctive and slices are
disjunctive - i.e. a slice satisfies a unary predicate iff one of the
mundanes in the slice does, and a bunch of slices satisfies a unary
predicate iff all the slices in the bunch do.

But just like with bunches and non-distributive predicates, we can
override this semantics when we want to.

Any deep-seated objections to this?

The basic point is that it's unnatural to use bunches for kinds, because
bunches are naturally conjunctive while kinds are naturally disjunctive.

Martin


> Somebody (the layered responses without summaries makes it difficult to=
=20
> figure out who is advocating what) holds that, in a given conversation,  =
{cinfo}=20
> (for example) may mean any of at least: Lion, lions, lion, lion segments=
=20
> (temporally defined), lion kinds, lionness.  And which {cinfo} means in t=
hat=20
> conversation in no way determines what, say, {xanti} (or whatever "elepha=
nt" is=20
> ) means in that same conversation.  Somebody else holds that this makes L=
ojban=20
> predicates ambiguous (at least across conversations -- the listed definit=
ions=20
> are merely suggestive, not to be taken literally, or, if so, at least lib=
erally)=20
> and, further, that it does not work because, in fact, most conversations =
turn=20
> out to involve shifts from one meaning to another, with corresponding cha=
nges in=20
> the domain, and with disastrous logical consequences (AE implies EA, for=
=20
> example).=20
>=20
> The first idea seems to rest on 1) a desire to show that Lojban is not SA=
E=20
> metaphysically, but rather can be viewed as of several different types in=
=20
> different contexts and 2) the looseness of English (and presumably Spanis=
h and=20
> most other familiar languages, possibly excepting Chinese) usage, which d=
oes in=20
> fact shift among these various meanings unmarked.  Unfortunately, goal 1)=
=20
> misses, since all that is shown is how wide the notion of thing is, not t=
hat NPs=20
> in Lojban refer to other than things.  Source 2) is, of course, just=20
> irrelevant.  The fact that English (etc.) is sloppy does not mean that Lo=
jban=20
> is.  Lojban has expressions for most of the distinctions here suggested a=
nd can=20
> easily fill in any gaps (there may be a infinite number of ways to slice =
the=20
> baloney, but at any given point only a finite number have been used, and =
we can=20
> cover that number).  Lojban can, of course, be telegraphic, dropping qual=
ifiers=20
> that are not needed in context (indeed, Gricean rules require this), but =
the=20
> semantics (and, probably, the pragmatics) are up to handling this and so =
this=20
> need not change the underlying nature of what is going on.
> As for the other position, I confess that I cannot follow the arguments, =
which=20
> seem to me to involve illegitimate (or at least misleading) uses of quant=
ifiers=20
> and a lot of technical mumble-jumble that does not obviously serve the po=
int=20
> (side one seems to do quite a bit of this, too, and side two may be merel=
y=20
> repeating that). =20
>=20
> In short, this seems to me a tempest in a teacup -- without any real ripp=
les=20
> even -- and of no real significance to Lojban.
> Stepping back to the official topic here for a moment.  The notion that {=
zo'e}=20
> means "what I have in mind or would have it I thought about it" leads to =
the=20
> paradoxical (but not contradictory) situation: A: xu do klama le zarci.  =
B: na=20
> go'i . mi klama le zarci.  That is, B went to the store, but not from A's=
=20
> intended starting point or not along A's intended path or not using A's i=
ntended=20
> mode of transportation.  But rather using B's intended starting point, pa=
th and=20
> mode.
> Taking {zo'e} to be just {da} cleverly disguised avoids this problem but =
creates=20
> others of its own, in terms scope and negation problems (which happen to =
work=20
> out alright here)
>=20
>=20
>=20
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Sat, November 5, 2011 10:31:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plur=
al=20
> variable
>=20
> * Saturday, 2011-11-05 at 22:28 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas <jjllambias@gmai=
l.com>:
>=20
> > On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> > > * Saturday, 2011-11-05 at 18:18 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas=20
> ><jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> > >
> > >> I think I do get it. I just don't think it has anything to do with
> > >> logical structure.
> > >
> > > Well that's a matter of definitions.
> > >
> > > But note e.g. that the classic example of scope ambiguity in english,
> > > "someone loves everyone", can be looked at this way:
> > >
> > > A: "Someone loves everyone."
> > > B: "Oh yeah? Who?
> > > A: "Their mother."
> > >
> > > A: {su'o prenu cu prami ro prenu}
> > > B: {ma prami ro prenu}
> > > A: {lo mamta}
> > >
> > > (Lojban can't seem to get at the "their" in "their mother", but that's
> > > not really important)
> > >
> > > (and yes, I know by now that you would consider A to be breaking your
> > > favoured domain conventions by having both mundane people and Mother =
as
> > > a person in the same domain; but (a) that's an informal rule, which
> > > appears to be flexible (you broke it in the xabju example), and (b) i=
t's
> > > not important to the essence of the example that prenu is being used =
on
> > > both sides)
> >=20
> > I still don't think that's a matter of logical structure. It's A
> > tricking B into one interpretation to get an effect once the "right"
> > interpretation is presented. That's how many jokes work.
>=20
> Well, I presented it in joke form - which was possibly foolish as
> I didn't intend to trivialise the issue!
>=20
> Really, I don't see that the situation is significantly better than it
> is in english.
>=20
> A search for "quantifier scope ambiguity examples" yields various
> examples of the issue in english, most of which appear to go through
> directly in kindful lojban.
>=20
> Another clear example:
>     "A professor talked to all the students"
>     {su'o ctuca cu tavla ro le tadni}
> could mean only that each student was talked to by a professor -
> formally, just because the kind Professor ctucas; or if we apply your
> informal rule that quantification indicates that there should be
> multiple things at the same level involved, then because it could be
> that they were all talked to by a logic professor.
>=20
> > >> Consider "a beret is a type of hat". I would say "lo ranmapku cu kle=
si
> > >> lo mapku".
> > >
> > > In reality, I'd just say {ro ranmapku cu mapku}.
> >=20
> > What about "berets and bowler hats are different types of hats"?
> > "lo ranmapku jo'u lo bolmapku cu ficysi'u lo ka klesi lo mapku"
>=20
> Again we could avoid kinds, and just say {su'o da ranmapku .o nai
> bolmapku}. Or we could use properties rather than kinds, and say {lo ka
> ranmapku na du lo ka bolmapku}, or copy your approach with {lo ka
> ranmapku ku jo'u lo ka bolmapku cu ficysi'u lo ka kairni'i lo ka mapku}
> (where ro da poi selkai ku'o ro de poi selkai zo'u go da de kairni'i gi
> ro di ckaji da na.a de) (although {go'e fi lo ka ma kau ckaji} might
> make more sense).
>=20
> > > But if you forced me to use kind terminology, I'd want a second
> > > predicate for "x1 is a subkind of x2". From the gimste definitions, I=
'd
> > > be more likely to use {klesi} for that than "x1 is an instance of x2",
> > > which is closer to {mupli}. In fact, {mupli} seems to want a property=
 in
> > > x2, so maybe this could be {klemupli}.
> >=20
> > (I would rather re-define "mupli" into "x1 is an instance of x2", but a=
nyway.)
> >=20
> > ...
> > > But maybe it's true that kinds are useful enough that the language
> > > should have special facilities for handling them - e.g. allowing {lo
> > > mapku} to get a kind. We just need to have ways to disambiguate.
> >=20
> > "klesi" allows us to disambiguate between two levels. Disambiguating
> > between a potentially infinite number of levels is trickier. As the
> > old Lojban saying goes: the price of infinite precision is infinite
> > verbosity
>=20
> Can you give an example where we might want to go up two levels from
> mundanes (as opposed to their stages or whatever)? I wouldn't be
> surprised if there were such, and maybe you've given examples before,
> but none spring to mind (other than artificial examples like "kinds of
> kinds of garment" - unless you can think of natural cases where we'd
> want to talk about those).
>=20
> > > The "imaginaries" terminology of the other thread gives one plausible
> > > approach to this - treating kinds as analogous (and, in a sense, dual)
> > > to bunches. {su'o} would get neither bunches nor imaginaries, but {lo}
> > > could get either.
> > >
> > > I suspect that a system based on this could explain e.g. most if not =
all
> > > of the sentences in your alis, while also being sufficiently
> > > disambiguable to satisfy me.
> > >
> > > Would you reject such a solution out of hand?
> >=20
> > I think that covers most needs, but I suspect there are cases when we
> > may want to quantify over kinds.
>=20
> Hmm. That didn't sound like a rejection!
>=20
> For quantifying over kinds: if the rule is that {lo} gets a bunch of
> imaginaries which are all imaginaries with respect to the same
> equivalence relation aka differentiation criterion (i.e., to import one
> more piece of model theoretic parlance, a bunch of imaginaries from the
> same "imaginary sort"), I see nothing wrong with using e.g.
> {ca lo prulamnicte mi citka vo lo cidja poi do nelci}.
>=20
> I would also want it to be possible to specify that we are fa'u are not
> talking about imaginaries (with respect to a non-trivial equivalence
> relation, i.e. one coarser than equality), perhaps with {lio} fa'u
> {loi}.
>=20
> (No that wasn't a typo! The PEG morphology allows {lio} as a cmavo form,
> right?)
>=20
> I'd also want to be able to specify the equivalence relation in question
> in the former case, i.e. as per And's (iii) of the other thread. I don't
> know how to do that... maybe with inner quantifiers?
> {re lo fi'u vei ni'e ka skari ma kau ve'o mapku cu vi zvati} for
> "two colours of hat are here", or
> {so'o lo fi'u vei ni'e ka danlu ma kau ve'o cinfo ba zi morsi} for
> "several species of lion will soon become extinct"?
>=20
> With {lio broda} being (blissfully) short for {lo fi'u vei ni'e co'e ve'o
> broda}?
>=20
> And {lo fi'u ro cinfo} being the wholly singularised lion, i.e. Lion
> (rather than an infinitesimal amount of lion)?
>=20
> Martin
>=20
> --=20
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>=20

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