Message-Id: <199412312217.AA10376@nfs1.digex.net>
Date:         Sat, 31 Dec 1994 11:35:16 -0800
Reply-To: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Subject:      plurality
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@access.digex.net>
Status: RO

        I confess I do not understand the problem central to the Plural
thread.  Are we forced in Lojban to choose between distributive and
collective descriptions?  Yes, we are, since we have to start off with a
descriptor and that is what we have -- as well as some for individuals of
various sorts.  So this contrast is an obligatory one in Lojban, as a
grammatical category.  To a certain extent, it must then be a semantic
obligatory one as well, since, except perhaps for _le_ and _la_, the
referents of the various expressions are determined as to type.  (Well,
individuals -- and maybe even groups of individuals -- can be treated as
masses and a mass is an individual by some sort of definition, but they
are basically different enough for this claim to be true at a commonsense
level.) So, what follows that is worrisome?
        Nothing about the descriptors require us to think that masses (or
sets or average brodas) have a separate reality from individuals, for all
can be accounted for in terms of individuals of the lowest sort (very
Quinine here we are) and, conversely, we can interpret most other
expressions directly interms of masses for the benefit of the Lojbanic
Trobrianders.  The expressions may tempt us into metaphysical excursions
-- and wouldn't that be a wonderful Whorfian effect -- but they don't
force us to them.  We do not even ever have to use the offending
expressions, though conversation is often a lot easier with them,
especially if we are going to avoid ambiguities of the "grouping"  sort.
So what is left?
pc>|83