From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Mon May 29 22:24:59 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3175 ; Mon, 29 May 95 22:24:50 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Mon, 29 May 95 20:54:03 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa09505; 29 May 95 21:53 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4582; Mon, 29 May 95 16:51:29 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3156; Mon, 29 May 1995 16:50:28 -0400 Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 16:51:08 -0400 Reply-To: "Dylan P. Thurston" Sender: Lojban list From: "Dylan P. Thurston" Subject: Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander In-Reply-To: <199505292043.QAA07111@abel.math.harvard.edu> Message-ID: <9505292153.aa09505@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R mi joi la and. joi la xorxes. cusku di'e > > > > So what is "a set of boxes"? {pisuho lohi tanxe}? > > > That works, I think. How about {lo se cmima be lo tanxe} or {lo'i > > > su'o lo tanxe}? > > Ah, yes. {lohi suo tanxe}. > > Well, not really. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think {lo'i} works > like {lo}, that means "the set of all boxes, of which there are at > least one". The inner quantifier of {lo'i} is always equivalent to {ro}. The inner quantifier is {ro} unless it's changed, no? By putting in {su'o}, you explicitly say it's not "the one and only set", but some piece of that set. > > ... > > Ah. So you'd say {suo ci da stedu loe remna} is true. I can see why. > > Weird. If you go off an find every human head, you find they each > > belong to loe remna. But if you encounter loe remna you find that > > Signor(a) Remna has one head. Cor. > > But you never encounter {lo'e remna}. Or rather, you can't conclude > anything about {lo'e} remna from properties of the one you encounter. > Let me try to be more clear: > ... Yes, this is quite true, but not relevant. And's point is that the properties of {lo'e remna}, unlike the properties of {lo'i} or {loi}, are of the same type as the properties of {lo remna}; in particular, since practically all {remna} have exactly one {stedu}, it should be true that {pa da stedu lo'e remna}. Remember, it's a myopic singular. (And yes, {da} would probably be {lo'e stedu}, but you don't need to specify it.) > ... > > ... But I would like to know how to > > say loe remna has exactly one head, two arms, two legs. > > It doesn't, in my opinion, because {lo'e remna} is not a sumti with > a fixed referent, to which you can give properties, much like > {pa remna} is not a sumti with a fixed referent to which you can give > properties. Or rather, you could put {lo'e remna} in the x1 of > a selbri meaning {x1 has exactly one head}, but you couldn't relate > it with some one thing by the relationship {stedu}. Huh? How else would you say "x1 has exactly one head"? > ... > I've changed my view of the world back and forth many times since > I started learning Lojban, and I haven't settled on one yet. Gosh. I'm looking forward to this. > > > (In fact, I'm tempted to write {ta tanxe reno lo'e plise} for > > > "that's a box for twenty apples", i.e. a twenty-apple box, not > > > necessarily for any particular twenty apples.) > > > > Ooh no - please - rather {ta tanxe loe re no mei plise}. > > Ok, but make it {lo'e plise renomei}, which is slightly less > ambiguous. How do you like {lo'e reno plise}? {ta tanxe lo'e reno plise} sounds to me like it's a box that can hold twenty different apples (not necessarily at the same time), rather than a typical mass of twenty apples. Is this a silly interpretation? mu'o mi'e. dilyn.