Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 03:03:25 -0500
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199412120803.AA08716@access3.digex.net>
To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Subject: Re: plural
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net
Status: RO

Jorge got knocked off the list again by the listserv automatic
processes, so I hope he gets this eventually.

>From: Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: plural
>
>la lojbab spusku di'e mi
>> >I don't see how can you avoid using one or the other. For a given
>> >broda, {le broda} refers to individual broda while {lei broda} refers
>> >to a group/mass of them. You could use {lei broda} for a single broda,
>> >but if there are more than one you have to be explicit whether you are
>> >referring to them individually or as a group.
>>
>> Why do you say this? "le" descrioptions mean what the speakers wants them
>> to mean, provided they are understood.
>
>Yes, the referent is what the speaker has in mind, but the way they are
>distributed depends on whether you use {le} or {lei}.
>
>You could use {le broda} to refer to a mass of five broda, but then if
>you had to make the quantifier explicit that would be {le pa broda} =
>"the one thing that I'm designating as broda (and which happens to
>actually be a mass of five broda)".

But once context forces me to make quantifiers explicit, then the
optionality of number expression has by definition ceased.  Lojban
allows one not to express number when it is NOT important to do so.

>> "le nanmu" can refer to 3 men treated
>> as a single mass, if the speaker wants to - to be explicit without allowing
>> them to be separated, you could say le nanmu poi cimei. (or appropriate other
>> place of cimei).
>
>Ok, but it would be {le pa nanmu poi cimei}. It is possible, but extremely
>misleading.

I am not OBLIGATED by either grammar or (usually) by pragmatics to put
that "pa" in there.

>One thing is to designate something that is not quite a broda but is
>very similar to one as {le broda}.  A very different thing is to
>designate something that is a group of broda (taken as a unit) as {le
>broda}, especially since the obvious way would be to say {lei broda}.

Why is it a "very different thing", and by what standard must "le broda"
describe something "very similar to a broda".  In the classic Lojban
example "le nanmu cu ninmu" the "similarity" seems rather outweighed by
the RELEVANT non-similarity.  And I would presume that describing me as
"le nolrai be la frans." merely because I am acting in a play does not
indicate I am "very similar" to the non-existent broda I am being
compared to.  Heck.  I don't even SPEAK French.  (I have a French name,
indeed one that indicates nobility, but I doubt that these similarities
have any relevance to my being described in a "le nolrai" sumti.)

>Suppose that there are five people in front of us, and I say:
>
>        ro le prenu cu citka lo plise
>
>This I will understand to mean "Each of the (5) people eats an apple."

Would it?  I'm not sure where "lo" ended up, but if it ended up as
implicitly equivalent to "da poi", then the sentence may mean that they
all ate the same apple.  Is this your intent?  (your English is
ambiguous).  This seems no more sensible than your alternative below.
It would seem likely to me, especially if the equivalence of "lo" and
"da poi" were established, that "lo"/"loi" do clearly make a
distributive/mass distinction.  Not so likely for "le"/"lei".

>But you are saying that it could also mean that the mass of five people,
>which I'm calling {le prenu}, eats an apple.
>
>It could, but it makes very little sense.

Given that you knew that there were 5 people and 5 apples before, and
none of the apples remain, then "le prenu cu citka le plise" suggests
that the apples were respectively eaten by the people, but to me makes
no implication about which of the people ate which apple(s).

Explicitly saying "ro le prenu cu citka le plise", which merely supplies
the already implicit outer quantifier, pragmatically emphasizes TO ME
that the people are intended to be considered as individuals, and I
would understand that as saying that each person separately ate an apple
(but if told later that 2 people had shared an apple while another ate 2
apples, I might feel misled, but I was not told a falsehood).

Likewise "le mu prenu cu citka le mu plise" more strongly emphasizes the
correspondence than the same sentence without the quantifiers.  But I
think you would insist that I expand this to 25 sentences implying that
each of the people ate each of the apples - a rather incomprehensible
concept.  Is this what we want?  (Nora thinks so.  She notes that as
long as only one sumti is to be interpreted distributively, there is
seldom problem with expansion.)

To unambiguously state that they each ate separate apples, I think "le
mu prenu cu citka le pa'a plise, using the "respectively" meaning of
"pa'aku".

>> And in any case, the defualt inner quantifier is "su'opa" which says nothing
>> about singularity or plurality.
>
>I know.  That's why I said the distinction between individual and group
>is not the same distinction English makes between singular and plural.
>
>If you use {le broda}, the referent is normally an individual broda for
>each event.  If you use {lei broda} the referent is a group of broda for
>each event.

But "normally" does not mean "as a rule", especially a prescriptive
rule.  Nora observes that she would not think twice about saying "mi
tcidu le cukta" referring to a pile of books, intending to indicate that
she had read them all.

I just noticed something.  The interesting thing is that while arguing
that one must make certain assumptions about who ate what merely because
"le" was used instead of "lei", you seemed to presume that the listener
would understand "ca" or "ca'a" as the tense, since you translated citka
as "eats", while I translated it as "ate" thereby presuming "pu", if not
"ba'o" (and in any case "pu'i").  Neither of us allowed for "ka'e" or
"nu'o" or "ba" as implicit tenses.  Yet in other sentences with other
sumti and other contexts, but the same grammar, we might understand one
of these tenses.

I think that Lojban makes number as invisible as tense as an obligatory
category.  This does not mean that people will not make assumptions,
correct or incorrect, about both tense and number, based on context.
But assuming singular as a rule would be risky.

From another thread, Jorge wrote:
>> It's a sort of magic wand that intuitively seems to give the
>> right semantics.
>
>I'm happy with that. (Unfortunately, I realize that in practice I tend
>to ignore the issue and happily use lenu where I should use le'enu.)

But you are understood, which implies that "le" can be understood as
"le'e" pragmatically.  Why then do you insist that it not mean "lei"
under other pragmatics.  (And do you assume that the "le'e" you 'should'
have used is always singular?)

lojbab
===
I note that Jorge is already back on - I think you missed only 2-3 messages
Jorge.