From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRCF18PeBBoEJpAA8g@googlegroups.com Thu Apr 22 17:36:47 2010 Received: from mail-ww0-f61.google.com ([74.125.82.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1O56st-0001S4-3p; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:47 -0700 Received: by wwb29 with SMTP id 29sf144544wwb.16 for ; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:36 -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=Ooo4gDHGmVOLUx94BtAeReyuPKJxYgPDgMeG88+D/rE=; b=Zbr0Coj1roYgyf7wAzb/L5c4cZK4KecK/bRfqd8zx1iP3tg4sMriEPAQy0FSasaUbk Z4568LHlaUi3t3kplTtTIqAacWd/KauxK0N2IcQUuwNxtL46jGt/UiGj7iw5PlPmDE90 xia7D+Zv67JfJtCEFEP3iLLlNiQ/0Vgd71zmU= 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=3S5KQMyLcjohW37rZoBrWNkgzsr6sHxSKPtKb0Qngrm7P3RdwCrKPgkexAJjLiHbcZ asGUuTXkDlEmBRxcJan/VQCh+OXmYtAuEfSQ0xb0fqsS4n/Uhy/vyMYDpKUmZ4zQJvox Sn7TyhzNNqvUl3sis1IXKnthI/jKtPUmlC7+8= Received: by 10.223.63.210 with SMTP id c18mr43490fai.20.1271982981298; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:21 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.204.6.77 with SMTP id 13ls9688541bky.3.p; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.204.163.19 with SMTP id y19mr641103bkx.2.1271982979150; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.204.163.19 with SMTP id y19mr641102bkx.2.1271982979118; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-qy0-f191.google.com (mail-qy0-f191.google.com [209.85.221.191]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id 17si62573bwz.7.2010.04.22.17.36.17; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:18 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.221.191 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.221.191; Received: by qyk29 with SMTP id 29so3547382qyk.2 for ; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:17 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.79.75 with HTTP; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:16 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <779167.40101.qm@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <6a2c862a-91f0-452e-9a31-0064620d5d06@g11g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> <391970.26672.qm@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <225049.90411.qm@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <734238.40743.qm@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4BD060B7.5020903@gmail.com> <779167.40101.qm@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:36:16 -0300 Received: by 10.229.97.207 with SMTP id m15mr5368488qcn.6.1271982977130; Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:17 -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 209.85.221.191 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 Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 8:57 PM, John E Clifford wro= te: > From: Jorge Llamb=EDas > > =A0 =A0lo tadni cu dasni lo xunre mapku gi'e sruri lo dinju > =A0 =A0"The students wore red caps and surrounded the building." > > With groups instead of plural reference, we would have to split the > claim into two: each student (not the group) wore red caps, and the > group (not each student) surrounded the building. > > [And you don't have to do that with plural reference because....? =A0'das= ni' is marked for taking its subjects singularly, while 'sruri' is marked f= or collective? No, it's not marked at all, at least not by anything other than our general knowledge of the world. I just picked an example where context would make it relatively clear how things were distributed. It's unlikely, but not logically impossible that they were all wearing a cap together, or maybe they just took turns wearing one cap, and it's unlikely, but not logically impossible that each of them surrounds the building. Maybe it's a small toy building. In some other example: lo verba pu bevri lo stuzi lo purdi "The children carried the chairs to the garden." We have no idea whether each child carried one chair, each pair of children carried one, they all carried each chair together, some of them carried one chair while others carried one heavy chair together, etc. If that information is relevant, we will have to supply it by some other means than by the gadri. >=A0I thought that was the gadri's job (together with quantifiers perhaps). No, and it shouldn't be. The distributional possibilities are so immense that having specialized gadri for each one would be madness. >=A0From what you said elsewhere just now (I'm doing these backwards appare= ntly), there seems to be no guarantee that the students who wore red caps a= nd the ones who surrounded the building are exactly the same -- or even par= tially, for that matter: 'lo tadni' has different referents at different ti= mes". =A0But that, of course, violates a basic rule of sentence collapsing:= you can't collapse ab & ac into > =A0a (b&c), if a means different things in the two original sentences, = =A0] "lo tadni" means the same thing in both sentences, of course. > i.e. "lo broda" =3D "zo'e noi ke'a broda", it is a sumti whose > referent(s) satisfy the predicate broda. > > [Whoooooa! =A0They don't have to satisfy the predicate in an preestablish= ed way, but they do have to satisfy it in some way. =A0Any old way will do? Yes. >=A0But that is not what the notion of a description -- or the relevant sen= se of satisfaction -- is about. =A0With plural referents you have basically= two choice -- individually, each of them is a broda, or collectively, all = of them broda together. Why not in pairs? Or in threes? Or in pairs and threes? Or ...? What makes the two extreme cases the only choices? >=A0Since these are either just things or L-sets of things, you can't even = say that abc broda and def broda, therefore abcdef broda. =A0We can't take = the fact that one thing brodaes yesterday and another tomorrow and combine = them to say that the two are in lo broda today.] Of course not, only if one broda today and the other also broda today can you say that the two broda today. > [So the standard line that 'lo broda' talks about brodaers collectively a= nd 'ro lo broda' talks about them individually is out, as is the assignment= of places to be collective or singular.] Was that your standard line? Mine has been that "ro lo broda cu brode" is distributive, while "lo broda" is unspecified for distribution. (And please don't say that this is new, I've been telling you this for ages, don't make me go look for old posts where we discussed this over and over again.) To reiterate the definitions for the 100th time: lo broda =3D zo'e noi ke'a broda (nothing here about how the referents are distributed) ro lo broda cu brode =3D ro da poi ke'a me lo broda zo'u da brode (keeping in mind that "ro" is singular) > As someone once said, the price of infinite precision is infinite verbosi= ty. > > {But this is doing away with a useful precision for not apparent reason a= t all -- except perhaps your still mysterious notion that 'lo' is a totally= content neutral term maker, which also seems pretty pointless It's very useful actually. > (Lord lnows we have enough totally neutral terms already, we don't need m= ore and especially we don't need ones that seem to be doing something usefu= l).] OK, tell me how would you say "the children carried the chairs to the garden". We don't know how they did it, because when we arrived they were already finished. How would you say it with your useful obligatory distinctions? 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.