From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Jun 13 09:24:24 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:24:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1DhrjS-0001Md-Dk for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:24:14 -0700 Received: from web81308.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.83]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.50) id 1DhrjP-0001MU-Sq for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:24:14 -0700 Received: (qmail 89134 invoked by uid 60001); 13 Jun 2005 16:24:10 -0000 Message-ID: <20050613162410.89132.qmail@web81308.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [65.69.50.91] by web81308.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:24:10 PDT Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:24:10 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: Un-definite quantifier. To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 10151 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --- opi_lauma wrote: > > You don't need the {lo} here. > Where? In the last example or in all my > examples? And why I do not > need {lo}? It is not necessary or I change > meaning if I put {lo}? In all cases, {PA lo gerku} = {PA gerku} > Is {su'o lo gerku} not equivalent to {lo > gerku}? I thought that if we > have no quantifier before {lo} it means (by > default) "undefinet number > but not zero", or the same "some", or the same > "at leas one", isn't? Well, it used to be (was in CLL and still was for years thereafter) but xorlo behaves differently. {lo gerku} is not directly about dogs, but, rather, is about dogs in a roundabout way that passes through the concept ^dog^ or something like it. As a result it may be the case (I think the jury is still out on some of these) that some simple sentences of the form {lo broda cu brode} may be true even if there are no brodas, because the concepts ^broda^ and ^brode^ are related in a particularly tight way. Almost certainly, for example, {lo pavyseljirna cu pavyseljirna} is true in this way as a general claim, even when there are no unicorns; and the same may be the case for {lo pavyseljirna cu blabi}, at least for those who think unicorns are white horses with single horns. Quantified {lo broda} expressions, on the other hand, are directly about brodas and so require that there be some brodas to be true (well, subject to a lot of conditions about scopes of negations and the like). The fact that {lo broda} without quantifiers (and with internal quantifiers) behaves so differently from {le broda} is one objection to xorlo, the claim being that absolutely nothing is gained by the complication invloved.