Message-Id: <m0r12Gs-00006yC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Fri, 28 Oct 1994 20:41:33 EDT
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: any, opaque, transparent, xe'e...
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2489
Lines: 59

la goran cusku di'e

> > The normal way to say "I eat the apple" is {mi citka le pa plise}.
> > You can say {mi citka lo pa plise}, but then you really mean that only
> > one apple exists.
>
> Just a moment, and let me check if my understanding is correct...
> Doesn't it say that onlspacetime interval? Like, {mi citka lo pa plise
> be vi le vi jumbe pagbu}?

Good point. I'd like to hear John Cowan's comment on that.

> And one other thing... About the opaque/transparent thing... I have been
> listening to the discussion for about a month (or more?), and I basically
> know what is wrong with "any", but I can't figure out what in fact do
> "opaque" andate, but my mind
> usually just skips over these words, not being able to parse them.

Well, consider "I need a box".

That can mean (at least) two things.

In the transparent sense, it means "there is a box such that I need it".
If you go over every single thing that is a box in your universe of
discourse, you can find one with the property that I need it.

That is what {mi nitcu lo tanxe} means. When you go over all things that
tanxe, I'm saying that at least one of them is needed by me.

But "I need a box" can have an opaque meaning as well. In this case, I'm
not claiming a property of any of the things that are boxes. I'm only
claiming something about me. Boxes could even not exist and the claim
would still be true. Or every single box could serve for my purposes,
and I still would need only "a box".

This opaque meaning is not possible in {mi nitcu lo tanxe} if we want
to keep Lojban logical.

For that I proposed {mi nitcu xe'e tanxe}. I also think that {mi nitcu
lo'e tanxe} works for this.


> And, some definition of {xe'e} a bit more clear than
>
> > The way I'd define it is something like: "Potentially everyone
> > but only one and no other, and none fits the predication in actuality".
>
> I think I got that it means one and just one arbitrarily chosen from whole
> set (if used with default {lo} quantifiers), but I can't fathom the meaning
> of "none fits the predication in actuality".

Well, because you are not really choosing one. You can't choose one and say
that the claim is true for that one, no matter how arbitrarily you choose it.
The claim only is valid before the selection. There is no actual referent
that fits the relationship. That is what I tried to say by making the potential
vs. actual distinction. I know it's not a clear definition, but I can't do
better for the moment.

Jorge