From lojban-out@lojban.org Fri Jun 09 06:54:38 2006 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 13233 invoked from network); 9 Jun 2006 13:44:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m26.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 9 Jun 2006 13:44:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 9 Jun 2006 13:44:07 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FohBH-0002Iu-5u for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:37:43 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FohAU-0002IC-Qa; Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:36:58 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:36:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FohA3-0002I1-2M for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:36:27 -0700 Received: from py-out-1112.google.com ([64.233.166.179]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FohA0-0002Hu-HP for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:36:26 -0700 Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id c59so829322pyc for ; Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:36:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.35.69.11 with SMTP id w11mr4025679pyk; Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:36:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.35.39.13 with HTTP; Fri, 9 Jun 2006 06:36:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 07:36:23 -0600 In-Reply-To: <925d17560606090549k2275f466x7802ac6c9b6abfd3@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: <925d17560606071637u1dfabac7n6e3551086a616f58@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606080643r55da8773gd4fad0bdac0c505a@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606080832j516fc7c9g7783a394f3d1074a@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560606090549k2275f466x7802ac6c9b6abfd3@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 11772 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: 2:3:4:0 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=0x7_QCtBs5KoOYu0Mo1nUWifmAZ0GAJDQKEcknHjp94cs4Y2lw X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 26193 On 6/9/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > On 6/8/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > On 6/8/06, Jorge Llambías wrote: > > > Suppose Alice and Betty are the only students > > > in the group, and the rest of the people surrounding the building are > > > professors, is "Students surround the building" true? > > > > Yes, it becomes much more apparent (to me, at least) once written out > > in Lojban. It's not {la alis cu sruri lo dinju}, it's {lu'o la alis cu > > sruri dinju}. > > My understanding of our disagreement so far had been as follows: > > (1) loi tadni cu sruri le dinju > (2) lu'o lo tadni cu sruri le dinju > (3) lo tadni cu sruri le dinju > > We both agreed (I thought) in which situations (1) would be true and > in which situations it would be false. We both agreed that {loi} could > be decomposed as {lu'o lo}, so that (2) says the same as (1). We Yes, I think > disagreed on whether the {lu'o} component could be optionally omitted. > I held that {lu'o} was optional, and so could be dropped when context > made it unnecessary, as in the example of students surrounding a > building, and you held that {lu'o} could not be dropped because if it > was dropped the predicate {sruri} had to be necessarily taken as > distributive. Yes. We also disagree on how non-distributivity should be marked. For example, I think that the following is grammatical under your rules, but I find the interpretation infeasible (or awkward), since it uses both "markers": lu'o ro lo tadni cu sruri lo dinju > > But now the disagreement seems to occur at an earlier step. > We no longer seem to agree about the meaning of (1). For example, > if there is a chain of rocks around the building, with a gap filled by > Alice, who is a student, you would say that (1) is true and I would > say it is false. loi rokci cu sruri le dinju What would you say of that, assuming that the surroundment wouldn't work if Alice wasn't there? Would it, too, be false? (In my mind, I find it hard to picture Alice and the rocks as forming a group in the first place. Masses aren't "forced" in the same way that members of a mathematical set can be. Just naming a random collection of objects and calling them a mass doesn't seem right, unless you can clearly visualize that they together "are". But this is all mostly speculative/intuitive.) As I've said, this is an issue of pragmatics. The speaker would likely say "[the rocks and Alice] surrounded the building" in the first place. For the case of the many students, and the one professor, Zoe, the speaker would likely say "the people surrounded...", or "the academics surrounded..." in the first place. Using the example of the single professor and the many students (equivalent to the Alice/rocks example), the following would be false: la zox cu sruri lo dinju "Zoe surrounds the building" [la zox e lo tadni] cu sruri lo dinju "Zoe and the students surround the building" lu'o po'o la zox cu sruri lo dinju "Zoe is the only thing the surrounder/surroundment of the building consists of" and the following would be true: lu'o la zox cu sruri lo dinju "Zoe surrounds the building" lu'o [la zox e lo tadni] cu sruri lo dinju "Zoe and the students surround the building" loi tadni cu sruri lo dinju "the students surround the building" loi ctuca cu sruri lo dinju "the professor surrounds the building" lu'o po'o [la zox e lo tadni] cu sruri lo dinju "Zoe and the students are the only thing the surrounder/surroundment of the building consists of" > For me it is false because it is not the case that > students surround the building in that case. For you it is true because > it is the case that a group of things that includes at least one student > surrounds the building. > > Do we at least agree on what we disagree about? I think so > > 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. > > 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.