Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 01:37:30 +0000
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: fractionators
In-reply-to: (Your message of Fri, 16 Dec 94 15:26:31 EST.)
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To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
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John:
> la .and. cusku di'e
> > OK. Why, then, do we need fractionators at all? We don't have them
> > with le or lo, do we? "vi viska lo/le prenu" does propel us into
> > long discussions about how much of the person or how much of
> > each of the people I saw.
> I take it that your last sentence lacks a negation, and should be "doesn't
> propel us".  Right enough.

Thanks be for your acuity. "Doesn't" is what I meant.

> The difficulty is fundamental, and depends on your view of masses.  Note
> that this has nothing to do with the "porridgey blob" view, which is
> unambiguously the correct one (as against the "blurred details" view),
> this is a finer split.

Are you thinking of the porridgey-blob (can't make out the boundaries
between individuals) versus the can't-tell-one-individual-from-another
interpretation? If so, I agree that this has been resolved, with loi/lei
having the porridgey-blob interpretation, though I still think it would
be nice to have a gadri for the latter interpretation.

> Is what is done by a part, done by the whole?  If so, fractionators are
> useless.  If, on the other hand, only what involves participation by all
> the parts is done by the whole, then fractionators are not useless, because
> they enable us to say that "some fraction of the in-mind mass" did
>  such-and-such.
> In fact, there is a tension in Lojban between individuals and masses.  The
> standard formulation is that masses result from the blobification of
> individuals; but there is an alternative formulation that says that everything
> is really a mass, and "le/lo" is just a contrivance which allows us to ignore
> the mass nature of things when such an attitude is useful.  "mi", e.g. is
> really a mass, but we feel free to treat ourselves as individuals when this
> is handy, and assert that "I did such-and-such" rather than "Some part of
> the me-blob did such-and-such."

I feel this should be left up to pragmatics, as the answer to these
issues will vary from context to context.

> > A mass is a singularity: why not treat it like other singulars,
> > e.g. "pa lo"?
> Because it may be useful to treat separate portions, thus:
>         le re nanmu cu citka [pisu'o] lei pa plise
>         The two men eat part(s) of the one apple.
> vs.
>         [pisu'o] lei pa plise cu se citka le re nanmu
>         A part of the one apple is eaten by each of the men.
> The first is straightforward, the latter impossible or disgusting.

I do see this, but what I do not see is
 (a) why we have to have a default fractionator (even one as noncommital
     as pisuho is),
 (b) why we want to make a distinction between pisuho lei and pisuho le
     [ah, I think I see it: pisuho lei re plise is a fraction of the
     combination of the two apples, whereas pisuho le re plise would
     be a fraction of each of the two apples?]

At any rate, I think "lei" should behave exactly like "le pa", and
"loi" exactly like "lo pa".

> > I don't see why we have to say anything about 'fractionators'
> > at all.
> The historical answer is that syntax outran semantics.  We devised a syntax
> whereby every sumti could be preceded by a number, and then set to devising
> meanings for that number on the part of each sumti type.

An honest answer. How about rethinking the matter?
What sort of number can precede "le pa"? Let that sort of number precede
"lei" too.

---
And