Return-Path: Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 91 01:17 EDT From: lojbab (Bob LeChevalier) To: lojban-list Subject: response to la korant. Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Thu Jun 27 01:18:21 1991 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab Your 5 mass statements are simple, but look carefully at the quantifiers. I have put normally ellipsized quantifiers in brackets - they are needed to properly understand what is going on. Afterwards i summarize the default quantifiers for the 4 descriptors involved. Note that none of your examples involve "lo'i" or "le'i" the set dewscriptors, which jimc misused. lo'i vinji is the set of all things that really are airplanes, and does not relate to their components. 1. su'ore lo [ro] prenu or su'ore le [su'ore] prenu 2. same as 1; the distinction between lo and le is that lo refers to things that have the relevant property, whereas le refers only to the speaker's intended referent which is presumed to be understood by the listener or the speaker would have given more information to restrict the referent. 3. piro loi [ro] prenu 4. ro lo [ro] prenu [ro] le ro prenu 5. lei pa prenu (you have a particular person in mind if it is only 1 like this would claim that there IS only one person in the universe) Default quantifiers - the big secret su'o lo ro prenu at-least-some of the-set-of-all-who-are persons (which set has cardinality 'all') e.g. for comparison su'o lo ci mela studjez. at-least-one of the-set-of-all-Stooges (which set has cardinality 3) [Example included to make the inner quantifier clear - I know there are problems with other aspects of the semantics.] ro le su'o prenu all of the-set-of-things-that-I-describe-as persons (which set-in-mind has cardinality at-least-1) pisu'o loi ro prenu at-least-some of the-mass-of-all-who-are-persons (cardinality 'all') piro lei su'o prenu all of the-massified-set-of-the-things-that-I-describe-as persons (cardinality 'at least 1') le/lei/le'i must have at least one in the set; lo/loi/lo'i need not have any in the set (in which case the su'o means 'at least 0' since 'ro' is also = '0') In normal usage, all of the above implicit quantifiers (a better term than 'default' actually) are left unstated. You only put in a quantifier if it differs from the default value. The resemblence of 'lo' to English indefinites is purely a result of our choice for the implicit quantifier. In JCB's Loglan the equivalent word was 'lea' which had the default quantifier "ro lea ro prenu" (all of the set of all who really are persons) which is only useful for the logically risky universal claim, whereas 'lo' is of course useful for indefinites, where the speaker has no particular referents in mind. But 'lo' is still not quite the same as English indefinites ('a' or 'some' as articles). If you have even the slightest restriction on the set of persons being described and do not make the restriction explicit with poi/pe/po'u etc., the you should use 'le' instead of 'lo', and use explicit "su'o" to replace the default implicit outside quantifier 'ro': "su'o le