From cowan@ccil.org Sun Oct 28 07:06:04 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: cowan@mercury.ccil.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 28 Oct 2001 15:06:03 -0000 Received: (qmail 22847 invoked from network); 28 Oct 2001 15:06:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by 10.1.1.220 with QMQP; 28 Oct 2001 15:06:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mercury.ccil.org) (192.190.237.100) by mta3 with SMTP; 28 Oct 2001 15:06:03 -0000 Received: from cowan by mercury.ccil.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 15xrVi-0001qb-00 for ; Sun, 28 Oct 2001 10:06:02 -0500 Subject: Re: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e In-Reply-To: <20011028025343.A2376@twcny.rr.com> from Rob Speer at "Oct 28, 2001 02:53:43 am" To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 10:06:02 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Profile: johnwcowan X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11700 Rob Speer scripsit: > Let's start discussing a sentence which is less likely to be false. How > do you say "Every human has a head" without meaning that it is the same > head for every human? > > {ro remna cu ponse pa stedu}? It would be disturbing if this didn't > work... but what stops {pa stedu} from referring to the same head for > every person it is had by? Because quantifier ordering counts. The persons have to be mentioned before the heads are. 1) ro remna cu ponse pa stedu is equivalent to the full prenexed form: 2) ro da poi remna pa de poi stedu zo'u da ponse de For all X's that are human, there is one Y that is a head, such that X owns Y. So Example 1 and Example 2 are true. Whereas if you said 3) pa de poi stedu ro da poi remna zo'u da ponse de There is one Y that is a head, for all X's that are human, such that X owns Y. it would be false, for we don't all have the same head. If you get the quantifiers in the correct order in the prenex, then you can use any order you like in the main bridi; otherwise, the order in the bridi is presumed to be the order in the prenex. > {pa stedu cu stedu ro remna}? > {pazu'i stedu ro remna}? (My understanding of zu'i is that this is > equivalent to the previous one.) Those both work, and indeed better, for "ponse" is not truly appropriate. We don't *own* our heads (and carry them about in our briefcases!); we *have* heads. > {[some other prosumti] stedu ro remna}? IMHO the best (certainly the shortest) way to say what you want is: 4) ro remna cu se stedu pa da Each person is-headed-by one something which in full prenex form is: 5) ro de poi remna pa da zo'u da stedu de For all Y's that are human, there is one X, such that X is the head of Y. > Of course, {stedu ro remna} would work, except there's nowhere to put > the number, meaning that everyone has some number of heads. This would > be more significant in the example with eyes. I don't think this works either: "Look! A head of every man!" -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Please leave your values | Check your assumptions. In fact, at the front desk. | check your assumptions at the door. --sign in Paris hotel | --Miles Vorkosigan