From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Jun 11 04:48:27 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:48:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FpOQF-0006U5-8s for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:48:03 -0700 Received: from py-out-1112.google.com ([64.233.166.176]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FpOQB-0006Ts-7z for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:48:03 -0700 Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id x31so1410469pye for ; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:47:58 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=IeNS/8DleOJVe69ybLy3LbecCs/j6c0QRXAnRzrhLquf+igHhz8U4nyy6i88YgzpBArgSQBy2M9mTM0ruG5bsCuy8PMWqrPCc/uTr/f1n2pmcV0RRJxRAW7na80pTqHV5AQZOGD1t6CM9xpO2It41GMdmal9U3pglCpqNb5tSCM= Received: by 10.35.96.7 with SMTP id y7mr2410581pyl; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:47:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.35.39.13 with HTTP; Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:47:57 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 05:47:57 -0600 From: "Maxim Katcharov" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} In-Reply-To: <925d17560606100706j1b7f03bpb0a62b6ce99b613d@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <925d17560606080643r55da8773gd4fad0bdac0c505a@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606080832j516fc7c9g7783a394f3d1074a@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606090549k2275f466x7802ac6c9b6abfd3@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606090813o32d608e3pa4fef3f3190c0c4c@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606100706j1b7f03bpb0a62b6ce99b613d@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 11781 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 6/10/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > On 6/10/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > > > > > > > lu'o ro lo tadni cu sruri lo dinju > > > > If your grammar says that an outer {ro} on a {lo} marks it for > > distributivity, why is (1) exempt from this rule? > > Because the presence of {lu'o} means {ro} is no longer the outermost > marker. The distributive/non-distributive marker marks a slot, and no > matter how many {lo}s and {loi}s and {lu'o}s and quantifiers are contained > inside the sumti expression, the one that determines whether the slot is > distributive or not is the outermost. An outermost quantifier is distributive, > an outermost mass-marker is non-distributive. It's that simple. No doubt it's a simple rule, but the question is if it's the proper way to describe how we communicate. > > In addition to quantifiers, logical connectives are also distributive and > work just like quantifiers, and {joi} works like {loi} and {lu'o}. The neutral > connective, not marked for distributivity and which corresponds to {lo} > is {jo'u}. So if we have two people, Alice and Betty: > > la .alis .e la betis = ro le re prenu > la .alis .a la betis = su'o le re prenu > la .alis .onai la betis = pa le re prenu > la .alis na.enai la betis = no le re prenu > la .alis na.anai la betis = su'epa le re prenu > la .alis .o la betis = ro ja no le re prenu > > (The remaining logical connectives are not symmetric, and therefore don't > have a corresponding quantifier.) > > la .alis joi la betis = lei re prenu joi: in a mass with non-logical connective: mixed conjunction; "and" meaning "mixed together", forming a mass pagbu: x1 is a part/component/piece/portion/segment of x2 [where x2 is a whole/mass]; x2 is partly x1 > la .alis jo'u la betis = le re prenu jo'u: in common with; from CLL: A and B considered jointly gunma: x1 is a mass/team/aggregate/whole, together composed of components x2, considered jointly Are you offering these definitions as suggestions, or as explanations of how it really is? > > > > {lo rokci joi la alis cu sruri le dinju}. > > > > > > But apparently under your current interpretation, from that it follows that > > > {loi rokci cu sruri le dinju} and also that {lu'o la alis cu sruri le dinju} > > > (= {lai alis cu sruri le dinju}?). But neither of those follow at all, the > > > way I understand it. > > > > As I've said, this isn't English, you don't need the same pragmatics > > and verbatim translations. > > I'm not talking about pragmatics here, I'm talking about what follows > logically from an expression. For all cases of ko'a and ko'e and broda, > independently of their meanings, under your interpretation you have > that from: > > (1) ko'a joi ko'e broda > > you can deduce: > > (2) lu'o ko'a broda Right > > Just from knowing that ko'a and ko'e do X together, you can deduce > that ko'a is part of a group that does X. There's no pragmatics > involved there. Right, there are no pragmatics involved in my interpretation. > But for me (and also the way Lojban has always > been, as far as I can tell) {lu'o ko'a} is not "some group that has the > referents of {ko'a} as components, possibly among other components", > it means, in singularist terms, "a group that consists of the referents of > {ko'a}, no more and no less" or in pluralist terms it means that the > referents of {ko'a} do something together. "Consists" is handled by {po'o}. Aside from pragmatics ("well, the speaker wouldn't say 'the students surrounded the building' if it was students /and/ professors, so it must be just students"), there is no reason to assume that {lu'o la alis cu sruri lo dinju} would be false, or rather, to assign that po'o. > > > Now, I could say {lu'o la alis cu sruri lo dinju}, but usually I > > wouldn't. I'd say {lo rokci joi la alis cu sruri lo dinju}. However, > > the former would still be true - Alice is a part of the > > surrounder/surroundment of the building. > > Under your reinterpretation of {lu'o}, that's correct. Under the usual > interpretation, that's not correct. This is independent of whether > you take the singularist or the pluralist road. The singularist and > pluralist roads take you both to the same final place, but this new > spin that you want to put on {lu'o} changes it to something else. So you would disagree that loi tadni cu sruri lo dinju expands to [da poi sruri lo dinju] cu gunma [lo tadni] which you had previously described as a legitimate interpretation, yes? I agree, this is somewhat aside from the discussion. If it were true, then the expansion would be [da poi sruri lo dinju] cu gunma [[lo tadni] po'o] which would be sensible, and if it was the case, {lu'o la alis cu sruri lo dinju} would be false. However, I can't see any reason to introduce po'o. (Lack of a good reason should be enough to default to the simple version.) It doesn't harm anything to omit po'o - you could always use the expanded form, or a different shortcut. However, in other less simple cases, the full enumeration of components may prove infeasible (is a sports team really just the players that are on it? Is a human just those molecules? etc.), so the introduction of po'o is harmful there. > > > I'd still like to have that explanation of distributivity that I've > > been asking for. > > > > 1) {lu'o la tadni cu sruri lo dinju} > > 2) {loi tadni cu sruri lo dinju} > > 3) {la tadni cu sruri lo dinju} > > 4) {la tadni cu dasni lo mapku} > > > > What is Alice's relationship to each relationship? > > (I assume you mean {le} or {lo} rather than {la}.) > > In all cases, Alice is one of the referents of the sumti that appears in x1. > There's no more to it than that. There is more to it. {loi tadni cu sruri lo skori} and {ro lo tadni cu sruri lo skori} are different in some way, yes? I'm asking you to explain the difference. Does saying "Alice is one of the referents of both lo tadni" contribute /at all/ to an explanation of the /difference/? No. So there is more to explain - more to it. > The answer to your question "If Alice and > Betty do something together, what am I saying that Alice is doing by > herself?" is "I'm not saying anything about Alice more than that she is > one of the two people doing something together." > If I didn't know any English, and asked you to explain "dog" to me, would you do it in a way that relies on the English words "hound" or "canine"? No, you wouldn't. The meaning of the word "together" is the thing under dispute. If you're going to offer an explanation, don't make it circular - I have no idea what you mean by "together", the meaning of your "together" is what you're trying to explain - so why would you use your definition of the word? The only way that I understand "together" is "as parts of a group" (or "reciprocally"/"simultaneously", which are not applicable). Here is, again, my explanation for as a mass and individually, respectively: Alice is part of X X surrounds the building Alice wears a hat Is the difference not apparent there? > mu'o mi'e xorxes > > > 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. > > 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.