Message-Id: <199508141619.MAA07530@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Mon, 14 Aug 1995 07:48:12 -0700
Reply-To: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Subject:      quantifiers
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

xorxes:
Of course, if the first two mean the same then the scopes must be equal.
The question is, are we to define the first two as meaning the same?
You seem to assume that this is already pre-established, but I don't
really see why.

pc:
While the meaning of quantifiers embedded in simple sentence matrices
is open to some interpretation, once we get the quantifiers into prenex
position, we are in the notation of standard logic and so its rules apply,
not merely by definition or guess (remember, this is how Lojban was
designed).  And the rules say that the two orders are provably equivalent.
So, by xorxes rule about what "means the same" means, they mean the same.
QED
xorxes:
The two expressions are:
1) ci da poi nanmu ku ci de poi gerku zo'u da pencu de
2) ci da poi nanmu ku ci de poi gerku ku pencu
Placing the second argument in front of the predicate in (2) should change
nothing, I just do it for effect. I'm not sure what matrix {pencu}
introduces in one but not the other, since neither expression means
anything without it.
The writing of the prenex as a separate thing is
purely a clarificational notation, I don't think it should have additional
semantical content.
pc:
Yep. 2 is only stylistically (SOV rather than SVO) different from
3) ci da poi nanmu cu pencu ci da poi gerku.
Whatever the underlying structure is, it is the same for both 2 and 3.
However, whatever the underlying structure is in any grammatical system I
can think of (and I admit that there are a few gross I have not kept up
on but would love to hear about), 1 and 2 (and so 3) have marked
different structures and not structures that are interderivable in
meaning-preserving ways. The corresponding English sentences seem to me
to illustrate the general pattern: There are three men and three dogs
such that the men petted the dogs (1) Three men petted three dog (3)
(English has lousy anaphora when more than one potential antecedent is
around).
I also disagree that ci da poi nanmu, etc. do not mean anything on their
own, although they do not assert anything, of course but only delineate
areas of reference.  I think that context -- in particular the matrix vs
prenex context (I would say narrowed vs. unrestricted) -- affects how
those areas are delineated.  I am inclined to think that being in the
matrix affects both arguments, but it is easiest to make the case for the
second, so I only mentioned it.
Now along with this, xorxes does have a point : in the underlying logical
representation, all quantified expressions must be prenex, since logical
notation has no means of representing quantifiers in argument places (not
quite literally true, but near as makes no nevermind).  So, putting Lojban
quantified sumti (which is damned near all of them) in Lojban prenex
position rather than embedded is a clarifying notational device.  That
does not mean, however, that the clarifying device has to consist simply
in taking the sumti out of the matrix and putting it in prenex position
and putting an appropriate anaphora sumti in its old place.  To be
genuinely clarifying, something more may well be required and in this case
-- prenexing the quantifiers in 2 or 3 -- I think actually is, else the
order of the two quantifiers would be irrelevant (as it is in 1) and we
have agreed that it is not.
xorxes:
Well, I would use "and" to explain the second possible meaning, as I believe
I did. When we started discussing this with And, I favoured the "and"
reading, but then I changed to the And reading which seemed more useful.
You say that we don't have a choice, and that one of the readings is forced
by some prior rule, but I don't see it.
pc:
Xorxes actually put the "and" (e) in his Lojban version, which got into a
conflict with a general rule about how to expand logically joined sumti.
I just meant that "and"  worked better in the English translation (see
above) than the "with respect to which" or whatever that introduced
visions of relative selections that were not there.  To be sure, the "and"
is not there either but, since it is coordinating rather than
subordinating, it gives a less misleading impression while also making the
English more readable than "for three men, for three dogs," or some such
literal bit.

As for xorxes or And's rules, I have less than two years of this material
at hand since I started reading and of that I lost a large chunk in the
process of changing computers.  I am sorry if I have misrepresented their
views, but I do not have records of any systematic interpretations of
these issues.  I cannot find, for example, the rule which xorxes claims to
be general, unless it is that changing surface order and subordination have
no affect on meaning, which is general but clearly wrong, so probably not
what he meant. Since I am trying to construct a system for interpreting
Lojban sentences in logical notation (partially in answer to djer, who
will not like the results, I fear), I would appreciate any suggestions
anyone has and especially any other efforts that have been made to do
this task or any part of it.  On another thread I have, for example, been
trying to get a coherent picture of the operation of the luha series and
of the double descriptors (I had to pass on xorxes ro lo ci lo nanmu
because I cannot work out what it means yet) and here have been working
on quantified expressions. I suspect that there are other problems yet
to turn up but I have not gotten to them (well, there is the matter of
reference).
I find that my limited Lojban time has gotten absorbed in polemic and
that, as a result, I have not made much progress in the last several
weeks  with the projects at hand.  So, I am going to drop out of that
part of the group for a while.  I hope soon to present a coherent
(logically and lojbanically) reconstruction of quantifiers and gadri,
along with some justification for the form it takes.  In the meantime, I
would welcome any input into that process: questions that need
answering, pieces of your own analysis of issues involved -- or a
complete analysis, of course.  With a complete picture (of at least a
part of the project -- I may not be able to wait until the whole is done
because I need more data), the polemic aspects may again prove profitable,
as they have not been recently.  (I am sorry about that.  I have been in
and around these rackets for nearly forty years now and the
presuppositions have so seeped into my way of thinking that I have
trouble stepping out far enough to explain them to some
one not in there with me, it seems.  I cannot, at this point -- and
can't imagine that there was a time when I could -- explain to someone
who does not seem the difference between referring directly to an
individual and making a general claim about all or some individuals of a
certain kind what that difference is, nor can remember when it was not
obvious that certain kinds of transformations are not meaning preserving
and thus change meaning.  So, I will have to draw my battle lines
elsewhere, on a whole picture of how Lojban works and that it does what
is needed and matches intuitions and does so under quite general
principles about how such pictures ought to work.  Hopefully that will
make for a more manageable discussion.)
pc>|83