Message-Id: <199407261542.AA29408@nfs1.digex.net> Reply-To: Randall Holmes Date: Tue Jul 26 11:42:56 1994 Sender: Lojban list From: Randall Holmes Subject: Re: Response to Randall Holmes on Loglan/Lojban "me" X-To: lojbab@access.digex.net X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Tue Jul 26 11:42:56 1994 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU I think you are still cheating. Of course, everything in the world including any single one of those men is an element of some set with three elements: all that your sentence says is that each of the men you have in mind (however many there are!) is an element of some set with three elements (which is vacuously true if there are three distinct objects in the world). It really is a nontrivial logical maneuver to construct a predicate which applies to each of the objects currently referred to by "le mrenu"; it is also useful, as I have tried to point out. The fundamental error is thinking that "le mrenu" can refer to the whole collection of people it designates in any one occurrence; but this is not the case. Any sentence with le mrenu is a conjunction of sentences each of which says something about one of the designated men. There is one pre-ME construction which allows one to express a fact about the collection of designated men: we can say something like "le te mrenu" and tell how many there are. But that is the only loophole. --Randall