From lojban-out@lojban.org Mon May 29 06:57:24 2006 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 25160 invoked from network); 29 May 2006 13:57:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.67.33) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 29 May 2006 13:57:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 29 May 2006 13:57:22 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkiF3-00022V-Qb for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:57:10 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkiDg-00020s-B1; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:47 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkiDF-00020c-Dp for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:17 -0700 Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com ([64.233.162.205]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkiDD-00020U-0F for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:17 -0700 Received: by nz-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id 4so476114nzn for ; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.145.15 with SMTP id x15mr987023qbn; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.237.19 with HTTP; Mon, 29 May 2006 06:55:13 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <925d17560605290655h478dc1c5rbf85df7e0e7312cf@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 10:55:13 -0300 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> <925d17560605270712l6aa155efic0a7482d4ee0ba43@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605271658m1056888dm5385d20dc29df6db@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605271918x535ab3dre73d854264c1549d@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605280905u63d61d78k73da849a8d7856f1@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11689 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 2:12:4:0 X-eGroups-From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" Reply-To: jjllambias@gmail.com Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=brnpKVqvSTc0-tczgmTWhUU3TK4JwrIjcE6998DdhGNICAXM0A X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 26108 On 5/28/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > What I'd like to know is how you account for the building being > surrounded. What surrounds it? The students. > Each student does *not* surround it. Correct. > What surrounds it is that "mass" of students. That's one way of doing it, yes, and a valid way. That's the singularist way. Another valid way is to use plural reference: "the students" is not taken to refer to a single thing, but rather to many things at the same time. It is not taken to have one referent but many. > It's a type of thing > that can be clearly recognized - we even have names for it: crowd, > mob, swarm. Indeed, those are useful concepts and we have several words to cover them: gunma, girzu, bende, etc. > You seem to have a belief that you can say that each student surrounds > the building, but only when seen in the company of other students. No, I have no such belief. > And > aha! You don't have to introduce some sort of strange and > other-worldly entity that clearly doesn't belong. How efficient! I don't think encompassing entities are other-worldly at all, they are ordinary and useful concepts. But in some cases using plural reference is more convenient. > > 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". > > This doesn't strike you as unnecessarily complex? No, I think treating outer quantifiers uniformly is the simplest option. That way, when you say for example {ci ko'a} you don't have to keep track of whether {ko'a} had been assigned with a non-distributivity marker or not. You just need to remember what its referents are. > > 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. > > Use {lu'o} (or whatever) after a {gi'e} in the same transient manner > in which English occasionally uses "together". There are many other > solutions. {lu'o} belongs in selma'o LAhE. Its syntax consists of changing a sumti into another sumti. It can't be used after {gi'e}. > I think it deserves mention that I don't see it as a "neutral form" at > all, since I don't think that such a thing exists, aside from as an > ambiguous structure in your version of Lojban. Consider this sentence: "The three men lifted the piano". We can ask for more precision in many different ways: (1) When did they do it, yesterday or last month? (2) How many times did they do it, once or seven times? (3) Where did they do it, inside the house or outside? (4) How did they do it, with their bare hands or with the help of a crane? (5) How did they do it, quickly or slowly? (6) How did they do it, together or individually? The precision obtained from answering (6) is no more special than the precision obtained from answering any of the other questions. 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.