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Message-Id: <m0jVRX1-0000ltC@snark.thyrsus.com>
From: cowan (John Cowan)
Subject: Re: Nick tries valiantly to save face (His first sentence)
To: lojban-list
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 91 13:51:59 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9104230839.AA01500@its.rpi.edu>; from "Arthur Hyun" at Apr 23, 91 4:38 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL13]
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Tue Apr 23 13:52:51 1991
X-From-Space-Address: cowan

> Hmm.  In what case is it appropriate to use le'i or le over lo'i or lo?
> That is, in your particular example, in the overwhelming majority of
> cases, I think, "the something(s) I call bears" will be the same as
> "the thing which really is a bear".

Consider the English sentences:
	The bear shat in the woods.
	A bear shat in the woods.

In the first sentence, I am talking about something you have already
identified and which I, for convenience, describe as a bear.  It might
turn out to be a raccoon (:-)), but I will call it "le cribe".  As long
as you know what object I am talking about, we're all right.

In the second sentence, I am making an assertion about something which I
assert to be a bear.  You probably haven't heard anything about this bear
before.  So I call it "lo cribe".  I could also say "da poi cribe" = "some
x1 such-that [it] is-a-bear"; the only difference between "lo" and "da poi"
is that "lo" is meaningful even if no bears exist.

So the translations are:
	le cribe cu cupra lei kalci va le tricu ciste
	All-of-the-at-least-one-thing-I-describe-as a-bear [past] 
	produced the-mass-of feces there-at the tree-type-of system.

	lo cribe pu cupra lei kalci va le tricu ciste
	At-least-one-of-all-those-things-which-really-are bears [past]
	produced the-mass-of feces there-at the tree-type-of system.

> >Here we want to make a claim about "the set of all my Lojban sentences",
> >namely that "this-utterance" is the "first-of" them.  This is
> >
> >	dei pamoi lo'i mi lojbo jufra
> >	This-utterance is-first-of the-whole-of-the-set-of-all-things-which-
> >	really-are Lojbanic-type-of sentences pertaining-to-me.
> >
> >Now suppose I had written:
> >
> >	dei pamoi lo mi lojbo jufra
> >	This-utterance is-first-of at-least-one-of-all-things-which-are
> >	Lojbanic-type-of sentences pertaining-to-me.
> >
> >What would that claim?  It would mean that there is at least one of my
> >Lojban sentences of which this utterance is the first.  In other words,
> >this utterance is the first (the first what?) of some Lojbanic sentence of
> >mine.
> 
> This is a very important clarification, I feel.  However, in this particular
> instance, I think it would actually be more correct to use the latter, as
> the former setence, due to the tanru "lojbo jufra" could refer to even
> English sentences refering to lojban.  That is, the first statement is
> almost certainly false due to the verdical nature of "lo'i".

"lo" and "lo'i" are both veridical.  All that means is that we interpret
the tanru differently (and the interpretation "sentences about Lojban"
is certainly an acceptable one) and therefore disagree about the sentences'
truth value.  That's what happens when you use a semantically ambiguous
part of the language like tanru construction.

> >The use of "set" in a place structure is generally a signal that a set
> >sumti, either using "le'i" or "lo'i", or using "lu'i" to convert another
> >sumti to a set, or using "ce" or "ce'o" to combine two or more sumti into
> >a set, is appropriate in order to make sense.  Either that, or the
> >referent of the sumti should itself be a set, thus:
> >
> >	dei pamoi lo mi lojbo jufra girzu
> >	This-utterance is-first-of at-least-one-of-all-those-things-which-are
> >	my Lojbanic-type-of-sentence sets.
> 
> Perhaps I have a different idea of what a "set" is?  I don't really
> see how "mi lojbo jufra" is not a set, as it could be plural; that
> is, "my lojbanic-type-of sentences".  If this were the case, then
> it seems to me that it is, actually, a set--a set of those sentences
> of mine which are "lojbanic-type".

No, and this is fundamental.  When "lo" (or "le") refers to more than one
thing, it refers to the things separately.  There is no English name for
"a group of things considered as individuals"; the lawyerese adjective
"several" (as opposed to "joint") is the nearest approximation.  If I
say:
	ci lo prenu cu bevri le mudri
	Three men carry a piece-of-wood.
it must be the case that >each< of them carried it.
This applies equally to "le".  The individual articles, when applied to
plurals, refer to each of the individuals incorporated in the plural.

It is the function of the mass articles ("lai", "lei", "loi") to refer
to the individuals aggregated together, and of the set articles
("la'i", "le'i", "lo'i") to refer to the sets composed of the individuals.
If you say "The letters of the alphabet are of Roman origin", you can say
"le lerfu", because it is true of each of them.  If you say "The letters
of the alphabet are ultimately of Phoenician origin", you must use "lei"
because it is true only of the letters considered >en masse<; some are not
of Phoenician origin but were invented later.  If you say "The letters of
the alphabet number 26", you must use "le'i", because no single letter
"numbers 26", whatever that would mean.


-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban