Message-Id: <199308141221.AA01452@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 1993 01:13:05 EDT
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Subject:      Re: TEXT: Imagist
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

Well of course the absence of number had nothing to do with being different
from English.  Chinese does fine with no mandatory number distinction
(or am I wrong on that too?%^)  The object was metphysical parsimony, to
minimize the metaphysical categories that were required in the lnaguge.
Some languages do without number, so Loglan shouldn't need it.  Logic
does without mandatory number, so Loglan shouldn;t need it.  The few
categories where he have turned out to require a disticntion that Colin named,
have turned out to be inherent in the language and were not built in by intent.
"le" can include masses, as And's examples show, but if you do so regualrly,
without using "lei" people will misunderstand you, by taking the more
common interpreation of le as individuals.  Likewise, if you omit
abstraction markers, you get what he have called "sumti-raising" and
sentences with two conflicting meanings.  Neither seesm to be solvable
within the context of symbolic logic, "le" because it is intensional,
abstarctions because human language use abounds in unmarked sumti-raising
which keads to some of the more atrocious logic errors English speakers
make.

lojbab