Message-Id: <m0si12a-0000ZHC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 14 Aug 1995 07:23:10 -0700
Reply-To:     "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Subject:      lu'a
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2794
Lines: 52

Thepronoun "they" (which corresponds to massification) in English is much
more common than "each of them". It seems like a good idea to have the
simple form get the useful meaning.
pc:
Back to our different experiences of language: why does "they" mean the
mass rather than the distributive reference?  It seems to be about as
often one as the other (with occasional cases of AVG and even a few of
the set itself).  Best to have simple anaphora and a quick way (the luha
series, I am assuming) to get to the one we want on a given occasion.
xorxes:
I already interpret ti, ta, tu, mi, do as masses (mi'o, mi'a, ma'a, do'o
are officially defined as such, if I'm not mistaken). The other
interpretation is just too weird. I can't read {mi klama lo zarci} as
"Each of us goes to a market", possibly each to a different market. The
mass reading is the one that makes sense to me.
pc:
The compound ones are explicitly masses, I think (though I am
not enthusiastic about that), but I did think that the first few were the
few remaining cases of singular reference in Lojban.  Does _mi_ really no
longer mean "I/me" but rather "we/us" as well , so that there is NO
singular reference to simple individuals?  All the more need then for the
luha series as described, so that I can actually say (with strange
difficulty) that I myself alone go to the store, rather than some general
or massified claim about some unspecified group that happens to have me
as a member.  Ptui! (What is the smiley face for that?)

sos:
> BTW the referent of
> ko'a under the massifying effect of goi would not be the pair of dogs but >
> their mass, still one entity.
I don't know what would be the difference.
pc:
A pair is presumably a set, which cannot bite, etc.
sos:
> Notice then that in the massifying
> interpretation ko'a batci lo nanmu would be true if only one dog bit
> only one man, masses being the sort of things they
> are (note, NOT "the sort of > things pc has chosen to define them as").
Yes, just as in English, if I'm talking about two dogs, and I say "They
bit a man", it may be enough that one of them did the actual sinking of
the teeth in order to make the senrence true. The other dog would have to
be around, though. Otherwise it makes little sense to refer to them as one
entity taking part in that relationship.
pc:
Aside from my doubts about whether the "they" has to mean the mass and,
indeed, whether the English sentence cited might not as likely mean "both
of them bit him," this is a pleasant moment of agreement. Please see the
quantifier thread for my withdrawal notice.  However, I hope that xorxes
will continue to expound his version of the luha series, so that I can
incorporate it into my reconstruction when it (his version -- but may my
reconstruction too) becomes clear.
pc>|83