From lojban-out@lojban.org Sat May 27 21:26:45 2006 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 66144 invoked from network); 28 May 2006 04:25:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.67.36) by m29.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 May 2006 04:25:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 May 2006 04:25:15 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkCq0-0003OZ-78 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:25:12 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkCos-0003L3-By; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:24:05 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 27 May 2006 21:23:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkCnr-0003Iu-9d for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:22:59 -0700 Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.171]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkCnn-0003Ik-FO for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:22:59 -0700 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id j40so541630ugd for ; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:22:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.66.222.9 with SMTP id u9mr798052ugg; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:22:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.66.255.6 with HTTP; Sat, 27 May 2006 21:22:53 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 22:22:53 -0600 In-Reply-To: <925d17560605271918x535ab3dre73d854264c1549d@mail.gmail.com> 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> <925d17560605250957g29c9e972l4543c11102fc891f@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: 11683 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 2:12:4:0 X-eGroups-From: "Maxim Katcharov" From: "Maxim Katcharov" Reply-To: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=LZO9krp9ojGqpWGR6kcgSv-T8bSUCkAxaYvsqrUt5AQClBOq5w X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 26102 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. > > > > > > > > This is a somewhat absurd misrepresentation (or misunderstanding) of > > > > my position. I've never said that this entity (the mass of students) > > > > would wear a single hat; this is clearly and absolutely wrong. But > > > > this entity /would/ surround the building. We say two things: "50 > > > > things wear hats", "1 thing surrounds the building". > > > > > > Right. I suppose it doesn't bother you that the same phrase {le mu no > > > tadni} is being used to refer to the fifty things and also to the one thing at > > > the same time. > > > > I don't think it's right, which is why I don't support your ambiguous > > "individual here, together there" use of {lo}. > > 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." 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." There is nothing that we're trying to say in 2 which is not said more aptly by 3. 3 is the proper way to say 2. > > > > Personally, I prefer to say that it just refers to the fifty things, > > > and that both claims are about those fifty things only. But in the end it > > > doesn't really matter. If we both agree that the sentence is proper Lojban, > > > > Which sentence? No, I don't think that it's ok to use {lo cribe} > > individually in one part, and then as a mass in another part. You > > should use lu'o or similar. > > So you would not allow the conjunction of a distributive and a > non-distributive predicate. You would require splitting it into two > bridi such as for example: > > le mu no tadni cu dasni lo mapku i je lu'o le go'i cu sruri le dinju No, that would mean that connectives are unimportant, and they are. > I find that an inconvenience even in a simple case like this, and a big > headache in more complex cases. If you were to make a list of priorities, "convenience" would rank lower than "properness". I'm arguing that your (very slightly more) convenient way is improper. Arguing that my way is inconvenient does nothing for you if I'm demonstrating that your way is improper. First, we decide which way is proper. Then, we think of a way to make it convenient. 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) 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} 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- > > > > 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? > > 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. 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. > > > > Right. I probably misunderstand your use of quotes then. When you say > > > "X" means "Y", you don't mean that you can replace X with Y and get the > > > same meaning, then? > > > > u'i, ok: > > > > "did you see [all of a contextually sensible group of bears] when you > > went to the zoo?" > > "did you see all *the* bears when you went to the zoo?" > > > > ...are equivalent. Yes, you can replace them. The simple implication > > of non-relevant bears noes *not* include those irrelevant bears in the > > *contextually sensible/relevant* group of bears. > > I'm afraid I still don't follow your notation. The thing in square brackets > is something that the speaker is supposed to utter, or is it something > that we as outsiders, not in the context of the utterance, use to describe > what the speaker means? If it's something that we as outsiders use, OK. > If it's something that the speaker might say, which is what I thought you > were saying, then it doesn't correspond to {lo ro cribe}. It's something that the speaker says. How does the bracketed portion of: "did you see [all of a contextually sensible group of bears] when you went to the zoo?" not correspond to your{lo ro cribe}? What English phrase does your{lo ro cribe} correspond to? *Don't* tell me that it just corresponds to "all bears", because "all bears" is vague/ambiguous/has multiple interpretations. Explain exactly what you mean by "all bears", if that is indeed what it corresponds to. Do you mean each bear ever to exist? Do you mean all bears that have been mentioned? Do you mean as many bears as a human can think of in the course of an hour? Perhaps you mean all bears of a certain easy-to-define-from-context group of bears? > > > > > sensibility is something that you can discuss in the metalanguage, > > > > > when discussing what a phrase means, it is not something that you > > > > > can incorporate into the phrase without changing its meaning. > > > > > > > > Luckily, we're not incorporating it into the phrase, rather we're > > > > talking about its meaning within the phrase. > > > > > > OK, in that case we may be in agreement. {lo ro mapku} refers to all things > > > that count as hats in the context where the phrase is used, not to things that > > > may count as hats in other contexts, since those other things by definition > > > are inaccessible in the context where the phrase was used. It cannot therefore > > > be equivalent to another phrase with a restriction in it. > > > > What cannot be equivalent to what other phrase with what kind of > > restriction in it? > > 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. > (otherwise the restriction would be pointless). If the speaker says only > {lo ro cribe}, it may be the case (depending on the rest of the discourse) that > only bears in the zoo count as bears for that discourse. > 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.