Message-Id: <m0rr0fC-0009acC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 21 Mar 1995 04:53:32 -0500
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: mo'e
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2395
Lines: 48

>{la'e mo'e da} is not grammatical. I don't want to twist your words, I want
>to understand what {mo'e da} means. Which of the two meanings of {mo'e}
>should I use?

It should be grammatical!.  Look at the last rule in operand_385.  haven't
checked the parser, though.

>> We are converting non-mathematical 'objects' into mathematical ones.
>
>Right. Many objects to a single mathematical object, to be more precise.
>That is in the case of the apples.
>
>In the case of {mo'e li ci} you are not doing that. You don't take the
>number of referents that {li ci} has and use that as the number, and then
>use the description as the dimension. Here you do something else.

1) li ci is not a "description" - no selbri involved.  So you HAVE to do
something else.

2) In the case of the description, the number of referents PLUS the dimension
is "the number".  It happens that in ordinary arithmetic, the result of
operating on two dimensioned numbers happens to be the same as if the numbers
were separate from the dimension.  This iss not necessarily the case for all
mathematical operations.

So I sstill say that in both cassess, you are "converting the sumti into a
quantifier" - a ssingle quantifier, which may or may not have multiple
components, multiple types, etc.

Obviously, what I was trying for was to convert set membership into a
"quantifier" (i.e. something that can be operated on by a mex operator).
I am looking for a selection from a set of 7 numbers, andthe quantifier that
results will not actually be used in a mex expression, but will be used to
create an ordinal expresssion.  Exactly what conventionss need to be used to
make this clear are not esstablisshed, but I still say that mo'e is doing the
same thing in all of these cases.

I guess we have some kind of different underssstanding of "ssame thing", when
it applies to objects of different types.  The conversion of a description
into a quantifier may use somewhat different rules than the conversion of
a quantifier ssumti into a quantifier, which may be different form the
conversion of a free or bound variable into a quantifier.  These are all sumti,
but they are sumti of different types, and they are seldom in the language
considered to be semantically similar for purposess of interpretation.  They
are similar only in grammar, unlesss we find it conveniemt to make them
ssimilar in interpreattion.

lojbab