From @gate.demon.co.uk,@uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Thu Jun 08 21:48:38 1995 Received: from punt.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3298 ; Thu, 08 Jun 95 21:48:35 BST Received: from punt.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Thu, 08 Jun 95 01:43:12 GMT Received: from gate.demon.co.uk by punt.demon.co.uk id aa05569; 8 Jun 95 2:41 +0100 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by gate.demon.co.uk id aa24780; 7 Jun 95 20:43 GMT-60:00 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0162; Wed, 07 Jun 95 15:38:42 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5374; Wed, 7 Jun 1995 14:00:46 -0400 Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 13:57:24 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: lo'e X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506072043.aa24780@gate.demon.co.uk> Status: R >> {ci da stedu loe prenu} is probably false (or at >> least conceptually really weird), > >Yes, but for the opposite reason that you think, I think. There are in >fact many more than 3 human heads. (I prefer to talk about {stedu be >lo'e remna} rather than {be lo'e prenu}. I don't think the number of >heads is very relevant or easy to determine for general {prenu}.) > >{ta stedu lo'e remna} has to mean "that's a human head". Otherwise, it >wouldn't make sense to relate anything concrete with {lo'e remna}, and >that would be a shame. Just like {mi prami lo'e remna}, "I love >humans", is mainly a statement about {mi}, {ta stedu lo'e remna} has to >be a statement about {ta}. Can't we think of a human head without there >being a particular human to which it belongs? If not, then change the >example to {ta tanxe lo'e plise}, surely we can think of a box for >apples that is not a box for any particular apple. > >(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.) > >If you want to claim that only {pa da stedu lo'e remna}, then that {pa >da} has to be a {lo'e} type object as well, and only {lo'e} objects >could be in relationship with {lo'e} objects, which would limit its >usefulness enormously. I think you are correct that pada stedu lo'e remna requires that da be a lo'e type object as well, or rather, an indefinite object that cannot be instantiated. I do not think this affects "mi prami lo'e remna" because prami is dealing with a mental state and not with a physical relationship, and we CAN mentally relate to 'typicals', or at least to stereotypicals. JCB's classic example of lo'e is something like: loi cifno cu xabju la friko .ije loi cifno cu xabju la merko because part of the mass of lions can be found in zoos in the US but lo'e cifno cu xabju la friko .enai la merko I think this works because Africa is too big a concept, or maybe xabju is more a mental concept than stedu. ?xu lo'e cifno cu xabju pa da Does a typical lion reside in one place? I'm not sure the answer is yes, even though the previous example is an instantiation of "pada". pc probably has an opinion on this (???) lojbab