Message-Id: <199512192124.XAA20679@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 19 Dec 1995 21:21:51 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      TECH: {loi} & {loe}
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 9215
Lines: 181

1. Xorxe, pc & me agree that past discussion of "masses" [i.e.
the meaning of {loi}/{lei}] has involved several distinguishable
factors:

Date:         Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:38:25 -0800
From: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Subject:      TECH: masses
> I have become firmly convinced that xorxes and and are right (thereby
> overthrowing a long-standing religious conviction). As officially
> understood, the mass operators stand at one time or another for at
> least three different notions; as practically used, they stand for
> collectives, which is one of the options. The other two "obvious"
> possibilities are the Quinine/Trobriand/JCB Gavagai/Rabbithood/Mr.
> Rabbit ("species," for short) and "real" masses: undifferentiated
> and shiftingly bounded continuities (somebody's line but I can't find
> it again), singulars with a buried plurality, like water and air and
> ... (since just about anything can be so treated).

2. Xorxe, pc & me agree that {loi}/{lei} (&, I presume, {joi} & other
stuff labelled "mass") should be a COLLECTIVIZER.

pc:
> The collective sense seems to be the one we get the most use out of,
> so we should probably tie it to _loi_ and its analogs.

Xorxes to me:
> > As for masses, I don't want to debate them all over again until there is
> > an official refgrammar treatment of them. Until that exists, I will
> > continue with what is my current belief - that we either don't know
> > or disagree about what "masses" are.
> I think I've already formed an idea of what they are: the collective
> plural. If they are something else, then I would like to know how to
> do the collective plural, which is something extremely necessary given
>  that with le/lo you can only get the distributive one.

3. I think we remain uncertain as to whether the {pi} fractionators
before {loi} will now make any sense. In my view they don't.

Xorxes:
> There was and maybe still is disagreement as to the default quantifier
> for {loi}. Is {loi broda} "all the broda there are, collectively", or
> is it "some broda, collectively". I think that the second one is the
> more useful and the more consistent with the other defaults. In any
> case both can be explicited: {piro loi broda} and {pisu'o loi broda}.

{loi broda} should surely be the collective counterpart to the
distributive {lo broda}. In that case, fractionators make no particular
sense there. If {lo broda} is {suo lo broda}, then {loi broda} is a
group containing suo lo broda.

4. Instead, I reckon that PA + lVi should be a collectivized counterpart
of PA + lV: How does one state the cardinality of the collectivity? Well,
if {loi broda} is a group containing suo lo broda, then {ci loi broda}
should be a group containing 3 broda.

5. The other two erstwhile now-rejected candidate meanings for {loi}
have previously been labelled respectively Myopic Singularizer, which
is pc's "species"/Mr. Rabbit, and Porridgifier, which is [I think] pc's
"shiftingly bounded continuities" [which sounds like a cowanism], i.e.
true masses.
  To understand these, we must be aware of the distinction between
(i) multiply-instantiated/many-membered categories, such as the
category of cats, and (ii) what can be seen either as individuals or
as single-membered categories, e.g. Napoleon, London, (the mass of all)
wine. Lojban is fine on (i), but not fine on (ii). I will try to make
sense of the current situation.
  (a) All selbri must be defined so as to conform to (i).
  (b) By processes of myopic singularization and of porridgification,
      (ii)-type meanings derive from (i)-type meanings.
  (c) If a (ii)-type meaning can't be derived from a (i)-type, we
      must use a cmene to refer to it.
  (d) Meanings that are naturally (ii)-type, but which we wish to be
      denoted by a selbri, must be altered to give them a (i)-type
      meaning.
 Porridgification involves taking a number of individuals and erasing
their boundaries. Thus, e.g., a heap of cheeses can be seen as cheeses
or as cheese. A load of cows can be seen as cows or as cattle.
 Myopic singularization involves identifying every member of the
category with every other member, i.e. failing to recognize the
differences between them.

Jorge to pc:
> I don't think Lojban makes the distinction between "shiftingly bounded
> continuities" and its opposite, at least not with any article. If I
> put {pa lo djacu} in a bucket, and then I put another {pa lo djacu} in
> it, and then I show the result to you, you will hardly want to say that
> the bucket contains {re lo djacu}. On the other hand, if I put {pa lo
> mlatu} and then another {pa lo mlatu}, you will see {re lo mlatu} in
> the bucket. If I cut a {pa lo djacu} in half, I end up with {re lo djacu}.
> If I cut a {pa lo mlatu} in half, I do not end up with {re lo mlatu}.
> This is because {djacu} is normally a shiftingly bounded continuity,
> while {mlatu} is not, and the gadri don't change that property. So
> {mlatu} and {djacu} behave differently under fission and fusion because
> of their intrinsic semantics, not because of any external marker.

I agree. But all the same, the definition of {djacu} must contain criteria
for distinguishing between {pa djacu} and {re djacu}. I would propose
that {pa djacu} is continuous and entirely surrounded by non-djacu. The
important point is that there must be such criteria built into the
definition of {djacu}.

6. Since {loi} is to be a collectivizer rather than a porridgifier
or myopic singularizer, we should ask how to do porridgification and
myopic singularization.
 Take porridgification first. This can be done by a brivla "x1 is
a porridgification of x2" - {klani zei gunma} [I won't use gunma,
because at present it too is beset by the earlier confusion about
masshood]. So "cattle" would be {lo bakni klani zei gunma} or
{lo klani zei gunma be lo bakni}.
 As for myopic singularization, this I think should be the meaning
of {loe} and (maybe) {lee}, with by default {loe broda} and {lee broda}
[or {loe ro le broda}] being the myopic singularization of {ro lo broda}
and {ro le broda} respectively, and {ci loe broda} being the myopic
singularization of {ci lo broda}, just as {ci loi broda} shd be the
collectivization of {ci lo broda}.

7. I believe this definition of {loe} to be compatible with Jorge's.

Date:         Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:11:21 -0500
From: Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: tech harangue on le/lo
> A different matter would be to say something like:
>        mi ba kalte lo'e cinfo poi catra lo'e bakni
>        I will hunt lions that kill cows.
> In that case, I am not saying that there is a lion that killed a cow
> such that I am going to hunt it. I am only saying that I am going
> cow-killer-lion hunting.
>        mi djica lo'e plise
>        I am in a state of apple-wanting.

Your understanding of {loe}, we arrived at with much blood sweat
& tears [& tho it makes sense I can't believe it was the intention
when loe was invented (and I believe there to have been no
intelligent reason behind the addition of {lee})]. But it conflicts
with pc's loe cikagoan, which is the average chicagoan. So pc-wise,
your examples mean "the average apple is wanted by
me" and "the average cow-killing lion will be hunted by me".

I prefer the xorxean loe, and think "average" can be got by using a
brivla - something based on {cnano}, say. But if there is some severe
obstacle to that, then perhaps this "average" sense could be assigned
to {lee}.

8. Opacity I deal with in a separate post, because it has nothing
to do with gadri, but I will note here that Xorxes seems to have
been thinking that {loe} and opacity are bound up with each other.
This is not so. {loe broda} entails that broda exist, just as much
as {lo broda} and {loi broda} do. X glosses exx like {koa zbasu
loe zdani} as "he house builds", "he is a house builder" - i.e. as
habitual/generic statements. First, that ex. cd mean "he housebuilt
yesterday" - i.e. a single event. There's nothing about {loe} that
necessarily leads to habituality/genericity.
 X is right that "he is a house builder" does not entail that
there is a house he has built.
 > I think that "he is hunting lions" in the opaque sense has the same
 > kind of feature as "he builds houses", in the sense of "he is a
 > house-builder". There need be no houses to instantiate that claim.
 > In those cases I use {lo'e zmadi} and {lo'e cinfo}.
But this follows from the habitual/generic aspect, which creates opaque
contexts - a point which (in my cursory reading) neither Jorge nor pc
seem to have picked up on. The proper way to reveal the transparent/opaque
contrast with habituals is as follows.

opaque:
  koa tcaci ckaji leka kea zbasu lo zdani
transparent:
  da poi kea zdani zou koa tcaci ckaji leka kea zbasu da

opaque:
  bende/gunma/klesi/girzu leka kea nunzbasu koa lo zdani
  bende/gunma/klesi/girzu lohi nunzbasu be koa be lo zdani
transparent:
  da poi kea zdani zou bende/gunma/klesi/girzu leka kea nunzbasu koa da
  da poi kea zdani zou bende/gunma/klesi/girzu lohi nunzbasu be koa be da

[I'm unsure about the aptest selbri]

                ****************************
I very much hope that this is my final word on gadri.

coo, mie And