Message-Id: <m0rBq0s-00007EC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sun, 27 Nov 1994 15:17:38 EST
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: diversity
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 2171
Lines: 51

> By "true meaning" I mean "the sense the brivla actually has (rather
> than some sense that we mistakenly believe it has)".

Ok, but in a constructed language we define that sense, at least until
there is enough usage that it gets defined by that. Why would one
definition be truer than another?

> > > (I am in favour of a kind of opacity marker that means "the following
> > > sumti can't be exported to the prenex out of the abstraction containing
> > > the bridi the sumti is sumti of".)
> >
> > That's {tu'a}. It already exists.
>
> I mean a marker like $$$$ in "mi djica lo nu mi citka $$$$ lo plise"
> where $$$$ rules out "da poi plise zohu mi djica lo nu mi citka da".
> At present, I think, the zohu-form is not ruled out.

Sorry, I misunderstood. As I see it, the zohu-form is indeed ruled out.
The prenex in that case goes inside the nu: {mi djica le nu da poi plise
zo'u mi citka da}.

Since it is rare that we would want the outside quantification, I think
such marker is not needed. The outside prenex can always be explicited
in the rare cases when that's what we mean.

> > Suppose it is revised and made transparent. What would {mi sisku lo'e tanxe}
> > mean? Doesn't it mean something very close to "I'm looking for a box"?
>
> Close, yes. "I seek the box. The box is sought by me. I seek Box."
> By my understanding of "lohe", it merges all members of a category
> into a single individual that all members are modelled on.
> It implies "Every box is, by default, sought by me, unless it is
> exceptional."

That doesn't agree well with lojbab's 1.7 children. Or does that mean that
every family has 1.7 children unless it is exceptional? I don't think
that a claim for {lo'e} implies anything for the members of the category.

> "Antilogical" rather than "illogical". It sidesteps the problem,
> instead of getting to the root of it. Your proposal suggests that
> sumti have the semantic property [+/-opaque], & this obscures
> the fact (or so I take it to be) that opacity in fact arises from
> semantic structures in which an argument is contained within a
> mental representation.

You disagree that {lo'e} is +opaque then?

> ----
> And
>
Jorge