From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun May 28 09:06:02 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 28 May 2006 09:06:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkNlw-0001nE-C0 for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 28 May 2006 09:05:44 -0700 Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.172]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkNls-0001n5-9P for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 28 May 2006 09:05:44 -0700 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id j40so625799ugd for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 09:05:36 -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=JLfNyLlSt1vdcAiXqoFim5+U7e7VDuhyQFIkzoHR0qFunnRNJi6W4bimUd342zx5o8sBVTo+Xr7XS83Uj72LyRNhYnS0V8OWVayFv03QTRhKsKRbrxLYofyR6sjchyiSaHaQv9WWqgOgDyLpmM9sA+QxtwezYBCgUDSpmgrkLOk= Received: by 10.78.39.16 with SMTP id m16mr204123hum; Sun, 28 May 2006 09:05:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.78.21.5 with HTTP; Sun, 28 May 2006 09:05:36 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <925d17560605280905u63d61d78k73da849a8d7856f1@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 13:05:36 -0300 From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} 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: <925d17560605160731j379ecfdbo42862a88433e112c@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605260732u5039a616jf8c220a7a485a12a@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605270712l6aa155efic0a7482d4ee0ba43@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605271658m1056888dm5385d20dc29df6db@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605271918x535ab3dre73d854264c1549d@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 11684 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 5/28/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > On 5/27/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > > On 5/27/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > > On 5/27/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > > > > On 5/27/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > > > > On 5/27/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > > > > > > All I'm saying is that the view that > > > > > > does not introduce any encompassing entity is, for me at > > > > > > least, the most useful. That way I can say: > > > > > > > > > > > > le mu no tadni cu dasni lo mapku gi'e sruri le dinju > > > > > > "The fifty students wore hats and surrrounded the building." > > > > > > > > > > > > without claiming that there was any single entity that both wore a hat > > > > > > and surrounded the building. > > > > Then I don't understand why the above was an absurd misrepresentation > > of your position. > > Because > > 1 {le mu no tadni cu dasni lo mapku gi'e sruri le dinju} > > is not the correct way to say > > 2 "The fifty students wore hats and surrounded the building." But I didn't say that your position implied that. I said that that's what *my* view allows, i.e. the view that does not introduce an encompassing entity allows to use a distributive and a non-distributive predicate with the same referent. Your view disallows it, because under your proposed interpretation of {le} the Lojban claim would entail that there was an entity that both wore a hat and surrounded the building. > In fact, (2) is not the 'correct' way to say it either - (2) is a > shortened form of > > 3 "The fifty students wore hats and together surrounded the building." I think (2) is proper and correct English. (3) is also correct, and more precise. > You would say: > > {le muno tadni cu dasni lo mapku gi'e sruri le dinju} > "50 students wore hats and surrounded the building" > > I would consider that incorrect, and would rather say: > > {le muno tadni cu dasni lo mapku gi'e lu'o lego'i sruri le dinju} > "50 students wore hats and together they surrounded the building" > > (Perhaps {loi} is better than {lu'o}) > (I'm not perfectly sure about {lego'i}, maybe one of > {vo'a/ko'a/la'edi'u/ra} is more correct) That's ungrammatical. {gi'e} connects bridi-tails, which consist of a selbri followed by any number of sumti. The structure is as follows: ... [( ...) gi'e ( ...)] The fronted sumti are common to the two selbri, the trailing sumti go with each of the selbri. You can't introduce a sumti between {gi'e} and . In order to connect two full bridi, you need to use {i je} in afterthought mode, or {ge ... gi ...} in forethough mode. So either: le mu no tadni cu dasni lo mapku i je lu'o ra sruri le dinju or: ge le mu no tadni cu dasni lo mapku gi lu'o ra sruri le dinju The {cu} in {lu'o le go'i cu sruri} cannot be omitted, because otherwise you get a single sumti made from the tanru {go'i sruri}. {loi} can't be used instead of {lu'o} there, because {loi} can't take a bare sumti as a complement. You could say, however, something like {loi ro ra} or {loi ro le go'i}. {la'e di'u} would refer to the fact that the students wore hats, not to the students. For example, you could say: le mu no tadni cu dasni lo mapku i la'e di'u cizra The fifty students wore hats. That was weird. > Of course, if you think that {lu'o lego'i} is a big headache, then > perhaps you'll support something like: > > {le muno tadni cu dasni lo mapku gi'eloi sruri le dinju} That's ungrammatical too. {loi sruri} is a sumti and after {gi'e} you need a selbri. I don't think the expression {lu'o le go'i} is a big headache. The big headache is having to separate the sumti into two sumti every time you need to combine distributive and non-distributive predicates. > But I guess onwards with demonstrating that your (and McKay's) > perception of masses is incorrect. I'll remind you of my objection to > your conception of "mass": > > -quote- > On 5/27/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > > The non-singularist view holds that you can make a predication about > > several things without having to distribute it or having to introduce > > an encompassing single entity. > > How exactly is this sensible? X is a surrounder of the building, but > only when you look at it as her being in the company of A..W? X the > groupmate surrounds the building, but X does not? No, X the groupmate > does not surround the building. A..X, together/as a group/mass > surround the building. > > A quote (of supposedly McKay) that I found: > The fact that some individuals are surrounding a building does not > automatically imply that some single individual (of any kind) > surrounds the building. > > Yes, it does imply that. In this case, the mass of students is that > entity. Just because a mass does not take on a distinct physical shape > does not mean it's not there. > > Let's say that 10 soldiers then surrounded the students (together, and > not in the sense that these 10 soldiers each hugged a student). We > have a way to say this: "the squad surrounded the students". Yes, we > do explicitly treat groups as entities. You can't simply say "well, > look! No definite entity is mentioned explicitly, and I won't bother > to see if an implicit entity exists. After all, it's ridiculous to > think that some things seen together could just 'magically' be seen as > a new entity, right? ...and therefore no entity exists". > > -endquote- But in my view {le sonci cu sruri le tadni}, "the soldiers surrounded the students", does not require any new entity either. The things being surrounded can be more than one just as much as the surrounders. Any argument of the predicate can be distributive or non-distributive. > > > Ok, so your rule for using {lo} distributively/ambiguously is "if the > > > outer is blank, it is ambiguous, otherwise, distributive", correct? > > > > For any sumti whatsoever, not just for {lo}, I take an outer quantifier > > to be distributive, yes. > > I take this to mean that your{re loi ci nanmu} means something > entirely different from "(only) 2 of the group of 3 men" ("...carried > the piano"), yes? In my view {re loi ci nanmu} means the same as {re lo ci nanmu}, because the non-distributivity introduced by {loi} is then cancelled by the distributivity of the outer {re}. You'd have to say {loi re lo ci nanmu} to get a non-distributive "two of three". > > Q cu broda > > Q of the referents of are such that each is/does broda. > > > > For me, {lo} simply says nothing about distributivity, just as {lo mlatu} says > > nothing about the colour of cats. If you want to call that "ambiguous", suit > > yourself, but it is getting a bit jarring. > > For me, {lo} implies distributivity, just as {lo mlatu} implies > "feline". You seem to be unaware of my position: I don't think that > {lo} is ambiguous. To me, it means the exact same thing each time. It > doesn't mean "individually" in one situation, and "as a mass" in > another, all based on context. No. I do understand that. That is very close to the traditional view. That's basically how CLL defines it, except perhaps that you differ in the interpretation of the inner quantifier, but I do understand that you would use {lo} only with distributive predicates. > Here is a simple demonstration: > > your{lo mu tadni sruri lo pa grana} > > could mean either: > > "together the five students surrounded the pole" > "the five students each surrounded the pole" > > So, yes, I want to call that ambiguous, and I'm perfectly correct in > my usage of the word. I find your insistence that "ambiguous" refers > only to gismu-like words with multiple meanings to be disagreeable, > both with me and with the common dictionary definitions linked to > earlier. The marking of distributivity/non-distributivity properly belongs with the selbri, not with the sumti. "Together" and "indiviually" in English are adverbs, they modify the verb phrase, not the noun phrase, that's why in English you can use the same noun phrase with a distributive and a non-distributive predicate at the same time: The fifty students (wore hats individually) and (surrounded the building together) Two predicates, "...wore hats individually" and "...surrounded the building together" are predicated of the same referents, the fifty students. The adverbs "individually" and "together" can help make the predicate more precise, but they are not obligatory. This is similar to the way you can say: "The students walked quickly" and just "the students walked". The adverb "quickly" makes the predicate more precise, it excludes the possibility that they walked slowly, but does not make "the students walked" ambiguous. An ambiguous phrase is something like "time flies like an arrow" which can be parsed in (at least) two different ways. But nevermind, keep using ambiguous in your sense if it makes you happy. In your sense, my {lo} is ambiguous, yes. I just don't think that says something very useful. In Lojban, for whatever reasons (some good ones and some bad ones), the distributivity of a place of a predicate ended up being marked on the sumti rather than on the selbri. But it is still useful to have a neutral form of the sumti, so that you can combine distributive and non-distributive predication without having to replicate the sumti. > > If the speaker says {lo ro cribe poi zvati le dalpanka}, the very act of saying > > those words brings bears not in the zoo into the universe of discourse > > Sure, but just because you 'brought a whole bunch of bears into the > discourse', doesn't mean that your{lo ro cribe} will refer to all of > them later. For example, we might talk about all bears in the forest, > and then I might ask you your"did you see all the bears when you went > to the zoo?" question: > > xu do pu viska lo ro cribe ca lo nu do vitke le dalpanka > Did you see all bears when you visited the zoo? > > The your{lo ro cribe} would refer not to "all bears that have ever > been brought up" (i.e. bears in the forest), but clearly to a > contextually *sensible* group of bears, that is, the bears in the zoo. That's right. 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.