From: la gleki <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
<= b>Cc: John E Clifford <kal= i9putra@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 10:26 AM
Subject: [lojban] Re: lo and le and ro and any and ol' u= nca Tom Cobbley 'n' all. (was something about Aesop)

On Monday, January 28, 2013 8:23:39 PM UT= C+4, clifford wrote:

<= div>
Well, I think what we ser= iously need is some logic lessons.

How do you imagine children born by parents speaking Lojba= n taking logic lessons?

Give examples from real life and you are = done.

Not sure I understand this point. Lojban is n= ot yet an ideal logical language and so there is quite a bit that just sayi= ng things in Lojban may not solve.

I don't=20 think that all the problems have been solved (and for some I don't see=20 how to solve them in Lojban)

<= div>Do you know how to solve them somewhere? In xorban/tokipona/Navaho/lang= uage of penguins?

Well, in one sense I know how to solve them= in every language, namely by lengthy explanations of what is going on (to = be sure, such explanations are probably very hard in some languages, toki p= ona, for example). In another sense, no. That is, I don't know = yet quite how a language would go in which these distinctions were made nat= urally and unambiguously and transparently, though English -- and probably = most other languages -- do many of them part way

, but things are not nearly as muddled as=20 some people persist in claiming. that being said, a number of example= s=20 would be helpful to make the points already established clear and=20 forceful to all.

From: la gleki <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com>

<= span style=3D"font-weight:bold;">Subject:

On Monday, January 28, 2013 7:24:39 PM UTC+4, clifford wrote:
Yes, let's do get this away from Aesop (does anyone remember what the=20 connection was?) and stick to meddlesome quantifiers and operators.<= /div>
2. Yes, {le} makes purely denotative terms (God, how that phrase brings=20 back seminars and symposia of old). It is pragmatically urged that th= e=20 predicate involved be somehow connected to the object in the view of the other participants than the speaker but that is not strictly required.&nbs= p; a le phrase points to a particular definite (or is it specific?) thing=20 (in the xorlo sense) and just that, so that thing must be in UD, but is=20 otherwise not restricted.
3. As I have said, the main feature of {lo} is salience. A lo phrase=20 refers to the things with the indicated property that currently are of=20 interest -- including bringing them to our attention as one possible=20 way. What things is quite open to contextual determination: {lo broda= }=20 may, depending on context, refer to the physical mass of all brodas, or=20 the class of them or some subclass or or broda alone or various chunks=20 of one or several brodas taken separately or en masse. There are=20 various auxiliary devices (not all well-developed) for disambiguating if context doesn't work.
4 Neither {le} nor {lo} correlate in any regular way to English "the" or=20 "a", though, because of salience, repeated {lo broda} comes to be "the" regularly.
5. But {lo} is always bad for "any" because sali= ence -- or any specifying factor -- is just what "any" does not have.

My suggestion is th= at we create a list of many many examples and each lojbanist is given oppor= tunity to translate them.

Otherwise this problem will never be solved. Probably people here don't=20 understand what all those terms like "specific" or "salience" or othe= r=20 terms. vau zo'onai

Yes, seriously i dont remember when i=20 started that thread on "any". Long ago. No solution that has been=20 approved by at least 90% of lojbanists.

The same questions and an= swers arise again and again.

We need a huge list of examples.

mu'o

From: la glek= i <gleki.is...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sen= t: Monday, January 28, 2013 8:04 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Aesop's "The Wolf and the= Crane"

On Monday, January 28, 2013 5:53:47 PM UTC+4, tsani wrote:FWIW, I recall the CLL mentioning that using lo and le in a manner analogous=20 to "a" and "the", for back-referencing, is bad. I'm just not sure how=20 many of you will agree with the CLL. (Also, I can't be bothered to look=20 it up.)

{lo} *can* refer to things in context, and have definite=20 referents. It's the *generic* article in the sense that we *don't know*=20 if it's being definite or indefinite. The definite-indefinite=20 distinction seems to slowly be dying in IRC Lojban, which is -- I'd=20 wager -- where the majority of "spoken" Lojban happens. If there is such a thing as conversational Lojban, it's on IRC.

As for the "any" discussion, I'm slowly beginning to see the merits of sisku2 as a=20 property. If we use a simple article plus a selbri, we invoke {zo'e} and somewhere, there are definite referents that appear. {.i mi sisku lo=20 plise} has the awful problem of having semi-definite referents=20 (quantifierless {lo} doesn't actually need to for strange xorlo=20 reasons). However, assuming xorlo strangeness doesn't happen, the formal definition says we can plug in {zo'e noi ke'a plise} (the formal=20 definition should change, IMVHO, to reflect the fact that {lo} can be=20 quite bullshit-y.) -> {.i mi sisku zo'e noi ke'a plise}. Here's the=20 proof that actual referents appear. {zo'e} has referents. Now, if any=20 apple will do, there *shouldn't* be referents. Now, maybe it's possible=20 to hack our way around this with {da}-magics, but it seems like invoking the property that is being searched for is a more succinct solution, as -- and here's the important part -- *any* object satisfying that predicate will work.

I haven't really analysed this to a greater degree=20 that might suggest that using properties can most of the time / always=20 work. I think however that exploring this possibility is worthwhile,=20 unless we all get our facts straight about xorlo. (As it is, everyone=20 has their own interpretation. Please don't say otherwise. In fact, I=20 used to think I knew what I was talking about when I said "xorlo", but I realise that I don't. I used to think I agreed with certain people=20 about xorlo, but I realise that I don't.)

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

P.S.=20 if this is going to degenerate into a full-blown discussion about=20 articles and scopes and everything awful in the world, shouldn't we make a new topic?

Yes, let's close the= topic and continue where we left last time.

"Any" and {ro}&nbs= p;https://groups.google. com/d/topic/lo= jban/yh8- ChFLanM/discussion

Other si= milar topics:

Discussion of {da} https://groups.google.com/ forum/#!topic/lojban/ wtp1pNm8Nvc

Discussion of {da} https://g= roups.google. com/forum/#!topic/lojban/R1- Bi8p_xmg

Quantifier exactness&nb= sp;https://groups. google.com/forum/#!topi= c/ lojban/cJHKEf8kE3Q

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