Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU (psuvm.psu.edu [128.118.56.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with SMTP id NAA07892 for ; Wed, 16 Aug 1995 13:57:15 -0400 Message-Id: <199508161757.NAA07892@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU by PSUVM.PSU.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3561; Wed, 16 Aug 95 13:14:43 EDT Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@PSUVM) by PSUVM.PSU.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1950; Wed, 16 Aug 1995 12:36:40 -0400 Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 09:21:45 -0700 Reply-To: "John E. Clifford" Sender: Lojban list From: "John E. Clifford" Subject: luha X-To: lojban list To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Wed Aug 16 13:57:21 1995 X-From-Space-Address: <@PSUVM.PSU.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> xorxes: Could you give some examples [of "they"] where it is unambiguously distributive? pc: None of these seem to be unambiguously either way without a lot of context ("You hadda be there!") but some are more probably one than the other. So, for example, "They are running the mile" might be about a relay team or about the whole track team, only some of whom were actually running the mile, but it is more likely distributive. "They are racing their cars" is even more likely distributive. To be sure, as xorxes notes, an "each" or some such expression does help in English. xorxes: I find the mass reading the simplest of all, but I guess that what is simple is subjective. pc: I would have thought that individuals were objectively simpler than any mass or class of them. But carrying that over to language assumes we have an equally simple way to refer to individuals and that is not true in Lojban, so maybe there masses are simpler to talk about at least. xorxes: To me, mass reference (i.e. reference to the whole mass, not to some submass) is a case of singular reference. pc: True, but I was thinking of sorta normal individuals, ontological primes, if you will, for I take masses and classes to be derivative things -- which appears to be unlojbanic of me. xorxes: [mi] has meant "we/us" for as long as I know Lojban, I didn't know it was different originally. Indeed the point that Lojban does not mark the plural/singular distinction has been emphasized much more than I think is compatible with what is really the case. Of course, the "we" of "mi" is not just any old "we". It does not include the listener nor others that are not represented in some sense by the speaker. The speaker is the voice of all the components of that "we", that's why I think that the mass is the natural reading. The same happens with {do}, which in my opinion does not address each of the listeners independently, but all of them as one audience. I understand {ko dunda lo plise mi} to be "give me an apple", not "each of you give me an apple", even when the audience consists of more than one person. pc: Well, mi was singular throughout the Loglan phase and into the Lojban one some ways. To get to plural reference (in some rather specially strange sense) required the added indicators of who was in it with me. Those combos were masses (eventually). (BTW those masses indicate the need for the standard lu'a, to back to the individuals in them again: "We are racing our cars.") The issue of plurality was thus dealt with and felt to appropriate in this case (since every language does make this distinction with the personal pronouns), while the inspecificity of number was appropriate for descriptions (and, occasionally, even names). I find the new reading objectionably autocratic, King Mi speaking for the peones, not even bothering to identify them. But, as xorxes notes, mi'e can be used to specify somehow (not clear exactly how, is a name without its usual trimming actually referential?) The case of _do_ is admittedly less clear, since languages do not all separate singular and plural as well (English for a stark example). (Is _ko_ really a form of _do_? Not obviously with some attitudinals attached.) sos: > Ptui! (What is the smiley face for that?) I don't know. An appropriate attitudinal might be i'enaisai :) pc: I am not sure that i'e is the right attitude modality but naisai is pretty close to the right degree of negativity. sos: > A pair is presumably a set, which cannot bite, etc. So "I was bitten by a pair of dogs" is not good English? pc: Of course it is good English, but it is also distributive (most plausibly) and so refers to two entities not one, rather than the case under discussion. xorxes: I'm not sure which parts [of my theory about the meaning of the lu'a series] are still unclear. What would be a problem with my version? What would be something that cannot be said with it but can be said with another version? Is there some internal inconsistency with it? pc: Well, I have tried to set up a grid of all the le/lo forms with all the lu'a forms in front each. For most of them, I am just unsure what xorxes wants to put in the spot, for a few I think I know (but am cautious about even that), for a few others I seem to find two different suggestions in what xorxes says (or at least I think they are different, meaning they do not sound the same to me -- I admit I may be blinded by my readings of other constructions and my preference for the simpler lu'a readings) and for a very few I find that xorxes seems to give either vacuous or impossible readings (again from my understanding). I think the most useful thing for me would be for xorxes to prepare a grid of that sort and fill in each square explicitly. I fear even that would have its problems, since we have different starting points on some issues (what massifying a mass or any other individual does, for example). But it would open up some areas of agreement, perhaps, or at least I would know where my real problems were. pc>|83