From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRDOkLzeBBoE-ZDM6g@googlegroups.com Wed Apr 21 07:15:20 2010 Received: from mail-gx0-f187.google.com ([209.85.217.187]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1O4ahg-0003cM-Iu; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:15:20 -0700 Received: by gxk3 with SMTP id 3sf5184639gxk.11 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:53 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:mime-version:received:in-reply-to :references:date:received:message-id:subject:from:to :x-original-authentication-results:x-original-sender:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=qYasw1Zu5e0o0YfxSyb+7LbLH0EWG+LulxTrmFWFeOo=; b=vA6St8yzBSNtvyX6BaXCa2niIT0YGuO99RVC15a4cT/jNOAo1zIX0ttPHI48Iz/sIz u2szTwktdmag79bul8wHSYWc19do/paoy7feqFEVHBeIXscbMCwF2kl907YNW5E8wiHm qG7BDWLR2UyRR3BZczjz9PGmx1ycbteqLbwkQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-authentication-results :x-original-sender:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list:list-id :list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender:list-subscribe :list-unsubscribe:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=b76jXoJXGZIEK0p/OHdAJpRZVAyPVffsPnMbSUCjvPN/rd9q/SeFmRCib5C7qpaa6h CNKqyYVF8nejQI+jKH4Od6v3Zi/zpWqwasKyNqdLdAM26dgPfP/rt9A9dvCq3JHYem+V 8x6Tp7fMXDP2itqDb4a38mvb7M8w5PXLGwTEA= Received: by 10.150.174.18 with SMTP id w18mr872410ybe.24.1271859278400; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:38 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.216.145.167 with SMTP id p39ls9037997wej.0.p; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.216.183.12 with SMTP id p12mr308534wem.7.1271859274911; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.216.183.12 with SMTP id p12mr308533wem.7.1271859274875; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-qy0-f188.google.com (mail-qy0-f188.google.com [209.85.221.188]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id p33si10158747wba.3.2010.04.21.07.14.33; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:33 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.221.188 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.221.188; Received: by qyk26 with SMTP id 26so702966qyk.19 for ; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:33 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.79.75 with HTTP; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:25 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <75805.51342.qm@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <6a2c862a-91f0-452e-9a31-0064620d5d06@g11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> <931037.70565.qm@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <329209.57012.qm@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <243775.3002.qm@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <102923.48908.qm@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <75805.51342.qm@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:14:25 -0300 Received: by 10.229.189.212 with SMTP id df20mr235478qcb.21.1271859265595; Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:14:25 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] About plural 'ro' From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.221.188 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=jjllambias@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com X-Original-Sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 10:21 AM, John E Clifford wr= ote: > Well, I don't like the the 'ganai... gi ..' format since that would allow= for empty sumti, which are undesirable (if not incomprehensible) for a var= iety of reasons. It seems to me that the two issues are independent of one another. Empty sumti are indeed weird objects, but they are weird in any context, not only when used in "me ". The weirdness of: ganai da me gi ... in a context where doesn't have any referents comes from the fact that , which is supposed to be a referring term, doesn't have any referents, not from the fact that "da me ", "da is/are among the referents of " will then have to be false, and therefore "ganai da me gi ..." true. If faced with such a sumti, the listener will respond with na'i or ki'a, i.e. "I refuse to enter the universe of discourse you are leading me to", or "please clarify because I don't get where you are leading me to", or perhaps even "ja'o", "ok, I'll play along, let's enter the realm where this apparently referentless sumti does have a referent". But anyway, all this is leading us astray. Let's focus on sumti with clear referents. Given a sumti with (one or more) referents, my contention is that: ro cu broda =3D ro me cu broda =3D ro da poi ke'a me zo'u da broda =3D ro da zo'u ganai da me gi da broda and that those equivalences should hold whether ro/da are defined as plural or singular. If ro/da are defined as singular, all four expressions say that each referent of is broda (we probably agree about this). If ro/da are defined as plural, then my contention is that all four expressions say that any one or more of the referents of broda. You disagree with this contention. You say that even with ro/da defined as plural, we need to know something else about the referents of before we can decipher (some of) those four expressions. We need to know _how_ those referents came to be referents of before we can say what those expressions mean. That's what I find odd. (Forget about empty sumti. We are under the assumption that has one or more referents.) >=A0And yes, there is no general rule for 'ro' nor can I think of a = reason to expect one. The obvious reason is simplicity. It seems to me that the onus is on you to explain why we want to bring anything more than its referents into the question. >=A0Sumti refer to things in a variety of ways and quantifiers naturally ta= ke these differences into account. Why should sumti refer to things in a variety of ways? The obvious starting point is that they refer to things period. It is the job of the quantifier, not of the sumti, to specify how those referents relate to other referents. >=A0I we are going to have plural quantification, then that has to be the f= undamental form and others derive from it. Yes. But it seems to me that what you are introducing is not just plural quantification, but plural quantification plus some other information contained in sumti besides its referents. >=A0The most obvious way to deal with the problems that appear to arise fro= m this is to adapt the rules for quantifiers to what is quantified over (gi= ven that we are now in fact quantifying over things that no actual logic qu= antifies over and so we are winging it). I don't understand this point. If "ro" is singular, it quantifies over the set of referents. If "ro" is plural, it also quantifies over the same set of referents (but in the way that plural quantifiers do it). The things over which they quantify are the same things in both cases. >=A0If this gives undesirable results, then perhaps we need further rules a= bout transitivity, though these get increasingly hard to formulate. =A0Alte= rnatively, we can do away with plural quantification. which leads to proble= ms, > =A0given that terms have plural referents and instantiate bound variables= , so that, then, variables don't cover their instances. If we use singular quantification, it is the referents of the terms that instantiate bound variables, but only one referent at a time. With plural quantification too, it is the referents of the terms that instantiate bound variables except in this case more than one referent can instantiate at the same time. > Of course, we can also drop plural reference and go back to singularity a= nd get plurality explicitly when needed by the distinction between, say, 'l= o' and 'loi' (well, not plurality exactly, rather the interesting correlate= of it, collectivity). We could do lots of things. Personally, I don't like the loi mess. > Quantifiers continue to work differently depending on what the term appli= ed to is -- 'ro lo broda' is presumably partitive, 'ro loi broda' multiplic= ative, and so on. How can "ro lo broda" be partitive without plural reference? What is the single referent of "lo broda" in that case? mu'o mi'e xorxes --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den.