From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:46:11 2010 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list Date: Sun Dec 24 07:14:32 1995 From: ucleaar Subject: Re: TECH: {loi} & {loe} X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Sun Dec 24 07:14:32 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: John: > > > Therefore, "lo djacu" represents one or more water-quantities > > > (of indeterminate but definite size); > > Yes... > > > "loi djacu" represents a collective plural of these water-quantities, > > yes... > > > which in fact is a porridgification of water. > > No. > > Or rather, not necessarily. Suppose it is the argument of > > "is sufficient to make the pitch unusable". This is (in the context > > I conjure up) true of the collectivity of le djacu, but not of > > each djacu distributively. None of this means that I have to > > conceptually eradicate the boundaries that distinguish one djacu > > from another. As proof, notice that in English we can say > > "here are cheeses weighing 10 kilos together" - which is distinct from > > "here is cheese weighing 10 kilos"; {loi} gives the former, not the > > latter. > This seems to be the core of the dispute. I grant that the two English > sentences are distinct in some sense. But I cannot conceive of any > circumstances in which I would assent to one but dissent from the other. > (If you can see any, please enlighten me.) I will go along with you, at least until we find such a discriminatory circumstance. We might feel that - pragmatically at least - use of the collectivizer implies that the (surely less marked) distributive form is *not* appropriate. That is, {lei cirla cu ki'orgra li pano} would generally be taken to imply (i) that there is more than one cirla, and (ii) that {le cirla cu kiorgra li pano} is false. To me, a porridgifier does not to the same extent imply that the distributive form would be untrue. > Therefore, I claim that "loi cirla cu ki'orgra li pano" can be > translated either way. That doesn't follow. For example, what it takes to be a cheese in English may be different from what it takes to be pa cirla. > Yes, that is my understanding. "I never understood myopic singulars" > was elliptical for "I never understood how any one could interpret > Lojban mass gadri as producing myopic singularization." Indeed - yet the first account of loi/lei I ever encountered on lojban list was Mr Rabbit (which is surely not supposed to be understood as a kind of midgard-rabbit-hydra). > > In a collectivity the whole has various properties independent of its > > parts; it has a certain autonomy from them. And crucially, it has > > discernible parts. A porridge has no discernible parts (though it > > can have ingredients); and it is not autonomous from whatever > > constitutes it. (Most individuals are porridges.) > Humph. The porridge I ate last Friday had discernible parts: the banana > slices. The water and cream-of-wheat, however, had become inseparable > as a result of the cooking process. I think your distinction is > unnecessarily fine. You can conceptualize your gruel as having parts or as lacking parts. Only if you conceptualize it as lacking parts are you conceptualizing it as a mass. > A group of 5 people has easily discernible parts, and very few emergent > properties. A group of 500,000 people has parts that are quite difficult > to discern unless you look on such a small scale that you can't see the > group any more; its emergent properties are its most important ones; it > behaves quite autonomously. > But I have no trouble calling both of these "loi prenu". For the time being I think I'll concede, but will assume (if only pragmatically) that loi/lei implies (a) suore and (b) that lo/le would be false. > > > Certainly it doesn't match my concept of a species (jutsi), which is > > > an individual, not a class or set or collective. >Homo sapiens< is > > > an individual, ontologically on a par with other individuals; its > > > components are various (biological) individuals alive or dead. > > Classes, sets and collectivities are individuals. (As far as I can see.) > > I'd have thought a species is a class. I can't imagine what's your > > concept. > I find this hard to pin down exactly in words. >H.s.< is not a set, > because sets are defined by their members, and >H.s.< would be the same > if, say, I had never lived. It is not a natural kind either, because > natural kinds are defined by their properties, and >H.s.< cannot be > defined by a property (many have tried and have failed). It is not a > collection of any sort. I agree it isn't a set. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "collection". I think it is a class - it has members, but exists independently of them. (I.e. I'm saying it IS a kind.) The virtual impossibility of stating the conditions on membership of the class does not necessarily mean there are none - rather, it means we rarely have cause to need to know them, and hence don't know them. > > > Second, note that tenseless Lojban bridi (unlike their English > > > translations) are potentially any of "caa", "ka'e", "nu'i", or "pu'e". > > I am so appalled by this rule that I haven't yet been able to bring > > myself to face up to it. > > Few concepts are as ill-understood as these. (If you think logic or > > linguistics has a ready account of them, please point me to it.) Thus > > they shouldn't even have cmavo status, and to have the default > > unspecified is just a nightmare. (Usage goes against it, though.) > "Unspecified" just means that the domain of interpretation can compel > an unmarked sentence to belong to any of these types, just as an > un-tensed sentence can be made to belong to any time and place. Of > course the overwhelming majority of unflagged sentences are "ca'a", > because that's what pragmatics insists on, but there are exceptions > like "all ducks fly". None of that allays my worries. I wonder how one will be able to tell whether usage respects this rule? In the meantime, to be sure of being rightly understood, one is obliged to put {caa} in every bridi. (I assume that whenever one of the others is meant, it is used.) coo, mie And