From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Oct 03 14:53:37 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:53:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1EMYFT-0004Dp-JD for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:53:27 -0700 Received: from web81305.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.80]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.52) id 1EMYFQ-0004Dh-TE for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:53:27 -0700 Received: (qmail 75925 invoked by uid 60001); 3 Oct 2005 21:53:23 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=oqv2BnW7fmPDFWKwRXXTDK+WAJjf41n0PNr9o4BvN62hwL2kYpBEJ1kGL12FBPNZ6FndDVzDV19MAjghsoWkCdRjuAEBNsKq1QgDsBZOsI1ROi6zmbUZNaJlHWiF+pa4fZQP4k3KtJCd/DOVbmyqXVmLVzOx323jW5Npvx+cqm4= ; Message-ID: <20051003215323.75923.qmail@web81305.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [68.88.34.50] by web81305.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:53:23 PDT Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 14:53:23 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: {lo} down To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -1.3 (-) X-archive-position: 10710 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 I too am pleased to see that there is a growing focus on creating Lojjban text and other vehicles (hopefully including effective teaching aids). On the other hand, after 30 years in the business, I am concerned that the language being taught and used is neither defective nor mislabelled. Calling it the logical language carries along some commitment to a special relationship with Logic. And so, I speak out when I see some breech of that relationship. In most cases, a perfectly good language can be constructed in the way I oppose, but then it ought not be called "logical." So, to the issue of {lo}. First of all, here is the easy rule for {le} and {lo}. If you have a particular thing (or things) in mind and want to refer to it by reference to some property (with the intention of halping your hearer identify what that thing), then you may use {le}. Because it is your selection of the object, not its relation to the property which is vital, the preoperty need not be one the object actually has, so long as it helps others read your mind. (The classic good use is for the end of The Crying Game -- or an old Mike Hammer novel -- {le ninmu cu nanmu}). Otherwise, to refer to something by it sproperties, use {lo} (but now, since it is the preoperty that counts for reference, the object actually has to have it). Everybody agrees about this rule, with various minor caveats. The disagreement is about what {lo broda} refers to: a bunch of brodas or Mr. Broda. On the first view (it's mine, so I put it first)to say {lo broda cu brode} is to say directly that some brodas (make this as indefinte as need be -- no clue about how many and certainly not about which ones)are brode, in the straightforeward way in which Rex is a dog, and so on. On the other view, {lo broda cu brode} is to say of an individual, Mr. Broda (using this name is meant to have a certain denigrating effect, but it is the most convenient handle for this thing in any case), is brode (exactly how is unclear -- saying it is just like Rex is a dog creates some problem as does saying that it is in some special way). The thing about Mr. Broda is that his having a property is not completely independent of the properties of ordinary brodas: if some brodas are brode, then so is Mr. Broda, for example. For the msot part, the choice between these two interpretations makes no difference in practice (hence the lack of interest, perhaps, in today's Lojbanists). There are a few cases where they differ in what is correct to say. 1) {lo broda cu broda} and {lo broda cu brode}, where {brode} is part of the definition of {broda} and {lo broda cu brodi} where {brodi} is related to {broda} by well-known generalizations. In prelo (the first position), all of these are technically false when there are no brodas -- there can't be a bunch of things that don't exist. In xorlo (the other view) these are all true (well, the third one is open to dispute: unicorns are unicorns and unicorns are horselike, but are unicorns white?). In prelo, the fact that we often accept sentences of this sort even when they are strictly false is covered by the Lojban permission to leave out all manner of details if they are "obvious." In these cases, the details are matters of mode. The first case is just an instance of a tautology and so, under some formalist mode is detached from any actual reference. Something similar happens with the second, which is just stating a part of a definition, again without any reference. The thrid is trickier, but can be covered by claiming an implicit appeal to cultural knowledge. In any case, their truth can be accounted for. In xorlo, these truths are part of the rules for assigning properties to Mr. Broda, for these go beyond just the cases of the actions of ordinary brodas, though hopefully not in such a way as to lead to difficulties or falsehoods. Another (and, indeed, the only other one I know of) case of difference is in opaque contexts, contexts from which sumti cannot be fronted or generalized upon without risking going from a true claim to a false one. So, if I hit a dog, there is a dog which I hit. But if I want a dog, there is not (generally) a dog that I want -- any dog (within some limits probably) would do. In prelo, this problem is solved by putting in that place of "want" ({djica}) not a reference to the sort of things wanted but to an intensional object, in this case an event, which involves those kinds of things: {mi djica tu'a lo gerku} (what event is left very vague in this example). The non-fronting is now accounted for by the fact that {le gerku} refers not to actual dogs in this world but the dogs in a (possibly) remote world, defined by the intensional context of the event phrase. We can, obviously, not take reference to them (or generalizations from them) into this world with any guarantee that they will succeed in referring to something here (that the worlds overlap in just the right way). In xorlo, these intensional cases are treated as extensional for Mr. Broda. That is, that Mr. Broda is in the extension of {mi djica} is just a given as it is for any other predicate. To be sure, in this case the connection to ordinary brodas is more remote, since no ordinary broda may be what I want. On the other hand, there must be some connection with ordinary brodas if Mr. Broda is to do his job. The connection is counterfactual: "if such-and-such were the case for some ordinary brodas, the my desire would be met" (and similarly for other such cases). The "if" cause here corresponds to the event phrase in the prelo sentence and the consequent clause is something about the gap (or whatever) that raises the intensional issue being filled (or whatever -- there are a lot of these predicates and the exact apodasis ("then" clause) for each needs to be laid out). The protasis ("if" clause) also needs to be laid out for each situation more clearly: it is generally clear that "brodas exist" won't do, but what precisely is needed often takes some work -- if it is important. The general "something involving brodas" usually is enough here as in prelo. The virtue of xorlo is that it seems perfectly natural to someone whose home langauge has something like the "a" of English, that can be used in almost ever situation (varying with plurals, "sm," and mass-noun constructions); for aprticular cases and generalities, extensional and intensional. So it is easy to get used to. The vices are that it introduces a mass of new entities of a sort unknown to Lojban before and tha, in the process it complicates the semantics by having a mass of new rules for one kind of sumti that have no parallel for any others (including just the quantified forms of {lo} expressions. I have not, in fact, been able -- after several years of trying -- to construct a completely adequate semantics for xorlo, though I have come more or less close several times, only to have my attention called to some details that did not fit. Xorlo also hides logically significant facts very throroughly -- especially the counterfactual connections buried in "intensional" occurrences of {lo}. Prelo is the negative image of xorlo: its virtue is that it has a standard semmantics, uses only standard objects in the same way as they are used for all other sumti, and leaves all logically significant moves out in the open (the mark of a logical language, after all). On the other hand, it is harder to learn (leaving out {tu'a} in {djica2} and the like is a very common beginner -- and some more advanced -- Lojbanist's text). To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.