Return-Path: <@segate.sunet.se:LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@BITMAIL.LSOFT.COM> Received: from segate.sunet.se by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0sy1Fe-0000ZQC; Wed, 27 Sep 95 20:30 EET Message-Id: Received: from listmail.sunet.se by segate.sunet.se (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id 1795CEE8 ; Wed, 27 Sep 1995 19:15:38 +0200 Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 18:53:36 +0100 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: Re: quantifiers:masses X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1712 Lines: 35 Jorge says lots of sensible things to pc, and continues: > > I am inclined to think that something about this is involved in the > > difference between _loi broda_, a referring expression (so without > > external quantifiers) for the mass of the whole of the set of brodas > > (which I thought xorxes and I had gotten to a month ago or so but, > > given our skill at cross talk, will not insist on) > Since I still don't see why {piro loi broda} can't be a referring > expression, I can't argue this point. I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong) "referring expression" is being used with the definition "a constant, rather than a variable bound by a quantifier". {piro loi} is therefore by defininition not a referring expression, if {ro} here expresses a quantifier. In the American Civil War, there was a battle in a place called the Wildnerness. It was a very trying battle, because the Wildnerness was impenetrable tangle of trees and bushes. The domain where the terminologies of logic, philosophy and linguistics meet is in some respects rather similar, except that if you had to choose to fight your way through one or the other, everyone would choose the intellectual-terminological rather than the martial-geographical terrain. > I understand {pisu'o loi broda} as a mass whose components are broda > (not necessarily all the broda there are), and {piro loi broda} as > the mass whose components are all the broda there are. And, equivalently, I hope, {pisuo loi broda} is something that is broda, and {piro loi broda} is all the broda there is. > Furthemore, I think {loi broda} is more useful as an abbreviation of > {pisu'o loi broda} rather than of {piro loi broda}. That seems so. --- And