From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun May 07 07:59:16 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 07 May 2006 07:59:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Fckil-0000fr-Jj for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 07 May 2006 07:58:55 -0700 Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.184.230]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Fckii-0000fk-3p for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 07 May 2006 07:58:55 -0700 Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id i13so898419wra for ; Sun, 07 May 2006 07:58:50 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=KNQNKS58kY4tMTiYoNDBedaxYSc8Vktt18uPPjjqTwda/MOWLe/DRS+M+Ze5GBBfvzo3Jv0L1TInjIVWlNd/CFDvV7nw/qSlj1Ckvi40rdC0Mg5CZ89x8jHb6We4zSzkwYc6Es25+k+0EooZqJSptkVhJvz65k3xkiOQrZ7LZRE= Received: by 10.54.101.13 with SMTP id y13mr1258594wrb; Sun, 07 May 2006 07:58:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.54.126.18 with HTTP; Sun, 7 May 2006 07:58:50 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <925d17560605070758u5e187557u331c39056f29fe51@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 11:58:50 -0300 From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <925d17560605051949x4e9558c7oa69d3c999bc17680@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605060934q5a2b6172t6f3826feae787599@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605061531j68fc5d28h65b798fa9eda5703@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605061852y63ba2990lb04dc252f3eb6f0f@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11423 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 5/7/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > On 5/6/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > > On 5/6/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > > > > {ro lo ci cribe} > > > {ci lo ro cribe} > > > > In the first case, I'm going to say something about three bears, that each > > of them is or does something. In the second case, I'm going to say > > something about all bears, that exactly three of them are or do something. > > You indicate that you say something about what the inner qualifier is. > How is it (in the second example) that you say something about all > bears? Consider for example: ro tadni pu viska ci lo ro cribe Each student saw exactly three of all bears. I'm saying something about all bears: that each student saw exactly three of them. Or for example: na ku ci lo ro cribe cu blabi It is not the case that exactly three of all bears are white. I'm saying something about all bears: that it is not the case that exactly three of them are white. > In {ro lo tadni poi zvati ro lo nunctu ba snada} you use > similar forms, but {ba snada} applied to the outer quantifier, {RO lo > tadni...}. You were saying something about all those students, and not > "those such that...". If you had said {ci lo tadni poi...} (perhaps > you're making a prediction: only three will pass), you'd be saying > something not about that undefined number of students, but some exact > three. So what is it that you mean by "say something about [inner > quantifier]"?. About the referent of the sumti minus the outer quantifier, yes. The outer quantifier is part of what I'm saying about the referent, it is not part of the reference. The inner quantifier is part of the reference. > ({xu (do) pu viska (lo ro cribe) (ca lo nu do vitke le dalpanka)} - > did I group the sumti properly?) Yes. > In the above, wouldn't you mean {...ro lo cribe...}? You could say that too. In that case you would be emphasizing the distributivity. Something like "I'm asking about bears: did you see each one of them?" > Perhaps this: You had offered "I think that {le} indeed serves to > preclude the 'any' or 'in general' interpretation that {lo} does not > preclude". Point being that {le} had something to do with > specificness, and that {lo} allowed for something general. What is > this general thing? Some examples have been given, with focus on "3 > bears eat berries" vs. "bears eat berries", where the latter was > intended to illustrate generalness. I don't think that it did, since > it could only, in my mind at least, mean one of two things: "the > typical bear eats berries", and "all bears eat berries", both of which > are adequately handled. Adequately handled by something other than {lo} you mean? But that's like saying that tenseless bridi should not exist because any tense is adequately handled by other means. {lo} does not indicate anything more than conversion of a selbri into a sumti. If you want to indicate specificity explicitly, you need {le}, if you want to indicate universal quantification explicitly, you need {ro}, if you want to indicate "typical" explicitly (whatever that turns out to be) you need {lo'e}, etc. {lo} does not serve to indicate explicitly any of that, but it doesn't preclude those interpretations given a suitable context. > What is the distinction between {lo} and {le} if it is not > 'specificness'? And if it is 'specificness', could you illustrate it > with a new example, or show how my interpretation of previous examples > fails? I lost track about which of your examples we were discussing here, sorry. These are things that in my view cannot be said with {le}: mi nelci lo cakla I like chocolate. lo cakla cu su'o roi bruna gi'e su'o roi blabi Chocolate is sometimes brown and sometimes white. mi citka lo cakla ca ro djedi I eat chocolate every day. mi citka lo cakla i xu do go'i I'm eating chocolate, are you doing the same? These are things that can be said with {le}, and therefore also could be said with {lo} if you didn't care to use {le}: le vi cakla cu kukte This chocolate is delicious. xu do djica lo spisa be le cakla Do you want a bit of the chocolate? ("this" or "that" would be more idiomatic than "the" in English, but in Lojban you can leave which one you mean to context.) ko fairgau le cakla le zvati Distribute the chocolate among those present. mu'o mi'e xorxes To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.