From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:54:52 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 17 Mar 1993 09:52:52 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7057; Wed, 17 Mar 93 09:51:40 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8401; Wed, 17 Mar 93 09:52:40 EST Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 14:40:08 +0000 Reply-To: ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK Sender: Lojban list From: Mr Andrew Rosta Subject: TECH: QUERY re cmene X-To: lojban@cuvma.BITNET To: Erik Rauch Status: O X-From-Space-Date: Wed Mar 17 14:40:08 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: This is a question concerning the semantics of cmene. (1) In my view, in English most words (but in particular common nouns) have a sense, which is (usually) a category. The sense is then quantified to get a referent. Names are different: they have no senses. Rather, they are listed in an onomasticon that gives direct access to referents. So, referring by using names does not involve quantification. (I ignore here iffy cases like names of days of the week & months of the year.) (2) From earlier discussion on this list I understand that cmene do have senses, the sense of a cmene being "the category of entity named ____". Is it the case, then, that cmene are always used with implicit or explicit quanitification? That is, should we understand _la lojban cu bangu_ to mean "some entity named 'Lojban' is a language", as opposed to "every entity named 'Lojban' is a language"? If this is the case, I am confused as to why _la_ belongs to the same selmaho as _le_, _lo_, _loi_ etc. It seems to me (whose understanding of Lojban is superficial) that the function of _la_ is to act as a word-class identifier (i.e. to show that the word is not a gismu, lehavla or lujvo) and that semantically _la lojban_ is the equivalent of an unquantified gismu brivla. If I was rightly informed about the meaning of cmene, then - it seems to me (same caveat) that the following ought to be possible: mi cu la .and. "I am an-entity-named-And le la .and. cu prenu "What is hereby described as an-entity-named-And is a person" loi la .and. cu prenu "The mass-of entities-named-And is a person" Am I right - is that what _loi_ is? - Anyway, the point is that any descriptor / selmaho LE word should be able to go here. When I say that I reckon these things should be possible, I mean that given the semantics one would expect them to be. (3) In both English & Lojban, some referents of names seem sort of quantifiable - e.g. _Lojban_ (or la fraktur.) or _homosapiens_. We can say of writing on a piece of paper _This is Lojban_ or _There is some Lojban on this piece of paper_, which seems different from _Lojban has 3 word classes_ or the like. I think that in the case of English what is happening is that in _some Lojban_, _Lojban_ has been converted into a common noun such that its sense is the referent of the name _Lojban_ and is thereby quantifiable. My impression is that in Lojban one might well say _mi cu ciska la lojban_ meaning "some Lojban". So the point here is that this is another way in which cmene could be quantified, and this way conflicts with the way outlined under (2). I would appreciate enlightenment on these points. ---- And.