Message-Id: <m0rBqu2-00007EC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sun, 27 Nov 1994 16:14:55 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: lohe, lehe & ka
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2054
Lines: 47

> If you agree that "lohe" works as a kind of default universal quantifier
> (i.e. not falsified by exceptions), and you still think "lohe" will
> serve for your "xehe", then I would be glad to go along with you
> for the time being.

Not only not falsified by exceptions, but not even required to be verified
by a single instance. The claim with {lo'e}, at least the part relating
to it, is not necessarily instantiatable. {lo'e cinfa cu xabju la afrikas}
claims nothing about particular instances of lions.

> But I foresee problems: "I'm looking for a book (to prop open the
> door with". If you use "mi sisku lohe cukta", I would interpret
> this as implying "every average unexceptional nondeviant book is
> sought by me".

I wouldn't. For me it doesn't claim anything about any particular
instance of book. You would then interpret it as a claim about myriads
of events, one for each unexceptional book?

Also, to exclude not-useful-for-the-purpose books I'd say {mi sisku
le'e cukta}, which means any book within reason. (Or a generic book
with the in-mind restrictions I'm imposing.)

> But this is not so: there are zillions of books
> not sought by me, and it would be inappropriate to insert in the
> Encyclopaedia Britannica entry for Book the information that I
> was looking for one to prop open my door.

Who says you have to write in the entry for Book everything that can be
claimed about {lo'e cukta}?  Does the entry for London tell about what
happened in one of its buildings on May 27th just after lunch?

> The problem is that *all* the properties of class generics are emergent.
> If lo dodo was called Fritz, then loi dodo was called fritz, but
> class-generic dodo wasn't called Fritz.

loi dodo was called Fritz, but piro loi dodo wasn't.

Unless you mean that if I eat an apple, I'm eating the whole mass of
apples? What's the difference then between eating the whole mass and
eating half the mass? I disagree that all properties of the members
are properties of the mass, if that is what you are saying.

> -----
> And

Jorge