Not to prolong the rhetoric, but, as is usually the case in th= is sort of argument, you are arguing from two different points. = You claim that since {no da [flying teapot]} may be true, {lo no [flying t= eapot]} must be a legitimate expression. tijlan is arguing that, sinc= e {lo broda} requires that there be a broda and {lo no broda} would claim t= hat there is not one, {no lo broda} must be an illegitimate expression.&nbs= p; I suspect that you also regularly confuse being with existing, so that t= he fact that flying teapost do not exist is evidence that {lo broda} refers= to nothing and thus {lo no broda} is legitimate. If I have misunders= tood you, I apologize, but it seems to me that you are wrong on all counts:= the non-existence of flying teapots does not say anything about whether there are any; they may be in the universe of discourse ("be") but just no= t in the extension of "exists" (which is a predicate, at least in Lojban).&= nbsp; Since {no da broda} explicitly claims that there are no brodas (not o= nly that they don't exist) it is incompatible with the legitimacy of {lo br= oda}, which is meaningful only if there are brodas. Indeed, the use (= in main clauses, say) of {lo broda} guarantees that there are broda and, th= us, that {no da broda} is false. In the logic of the situation, {lo n= o broda} implies that there are broda, but it says there is a [whatever] th= at contains none of them (and, presumably, nothing else neither). But= every [whatever] contains at least one thing, namely itself, and which, fu= rthermore, is a broda. So, the notion of {lo no broda} is simply cont= radictory. The only loose links here are the claim that the use of{l= o broda} requires that there are brodas or that such expressions refer to [whatever]s with the cited properties. But both of these ar= e fundamental to xorlo, which is, as I've said, about as official as anythi= ng here. You can reject it, fo course, but that leaves you with the n= eed to devise some other scheme that solves the problems that xorlo solves = without getting into new ones. I'd welcome that attempt, but having w= orked at it for 35 years, I'm not very sanguine.

<= br>

From: Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gm= ail.com>
To: lojban@= googlegroups.com
Sent: = Tue, May 17, 2011 7:11:27 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] "lo no"

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 7:35 AM, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com= > wrote:

On 16 May 2011 13:13, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
> = No, I am not asking you to arbitrarily make one up. I am askin= g you to
> think about exactly how many trained assassing I am sending your way,<= br>> because all of them are deadly. (And if you think the answer is mor= e than
> zero, that says a lot more about your paranoia then it does = about lojban
> quanitifers.)

I already addressed that confusion of yours= . Linguistic reference does
not hinge upon physical reality. You can mak= e reference to some flying
teapot which doesn't physically exist or whic= h you don't believe
physically exists. Since "is-flying-teapot" cannot say of nothing but
so= mething, anything with the property "is-flying-teapot" is
necessarily of= more than zero cardinality. When you say "I'm sending
the trained assassins your way", you are linguistically referring to
som= e non-zero entity; but I don't here have to assume that the
referred ent= ity has a physical factual correlate (such an assumption
depends on the = pragmatics, not syntax or semantics, of your statement,
and I'm informed by that pragmatics that you may not be stating a
physic= al reality).

Right, but this is where we disagree. I say you CAN say "= is-flying-teapot" of a nothing. I am not going to argue this point an= ymore, because you understand what I am saying, and I understand what you a= re saying. No point in going round and round here. Anymore sent= ences you say on this exact point will be ignored, but do not think that th= e fact of my ignoring them means I agree with you. It just means I'm = sick of the same points being raised again and again, as if repetition is a= valid rhetorical style to get something across.

>> "three things" differ from "zero thing" prim= arily in that
>> they are both individually and collectively somet= hing as opposed to
>> nothing; and so on. As far as cardinality is= concerned, the difference
>> between "zero" and "some" is more primitive than the difference>> between "zero" and positive integers. The fact that "some" can be=
>> meaningful in primitive terms of "non-zero" rather than of suc= h
>> particulars as "one" or "three", warrants the act of making refere= nce
>> to something with no provision for its specific total quant= ity.
>
> It may not be integers, but I would think you d= efnitely have to be
> positive reals, at the very least in order to qualify "some". (su'o)
You don't always need to be able to qualify "some" with an exac= t
number, especially when what's at stake is the primitive difference of=
something from nothing.

I never said that you need to be able to qualify it with an _ex= act_ number. I am saying that quantitiy, whatever it is, must be a no= n-negative, non-imaginary number, in order to be "somethingness" as opposed= to a "nothingness" You say much the same down below.

There are cases when a reference to<= br>"non-nothing" is more meaningful than to "three things", for instance. Suppose I want to change the paint of the walls of my room by today's
ev= ening -- "I'm going to give them a new coat of paint":

mi ba punji l= o cinta lo bitmu

What's important for me is that the walls will have= different paint
than the current one -- whether one material or three hundred
materials = of paints, not important. Not only I'm unconcerned with the
number of lo= cinta to be applied, also this number is factually
undetermined; not on= ly I don't subjectively know how many lo cinta I'm
going to use, also there is no objective answer to "lo xo cinta" as of
n= ow. It might even turn out that the wall wouldn't after all change by
th= e evening because I had been too busy doing other things or I
changed my own mind.

In the last case you have not put paint on the walls, or to put= it another way, you have put "lo no cinta {of the paint you actually put o= n the walls}" on the walls (or "no lo {whatever amount you intended to put}= cinta" on the walls. The statements mean two different things, but r= efer to the same end result in the physical word)

Would these factors affect my refere= nce to lo
cinta? Would I have made a meaningless statement by "mi ba pun= ji lo
cinta lo bitmu" just because I epistemologically couldn't set a
specific= cardinality for lo cinta?

Again, you are bringing up a red herring. The amount IS q= uantifiable, whether or not you (or anything) know what it is, can measure = it, etc. Even if it is a range, even if it is constantly chagning, is= an eigenstate, whatever.

Would I have meant nothing by "locinta" just because it eventually turned out to be none? No:
regardless of the physical reality, my sumti did refer to the concept
of= some paint. The term "lo cinta" was primitively meaningful by
virtue of= the reference to non-nothing, without any exact number as a
subjective or objective answer to "lo xo cinta".

>> In Lojban, only "no" can exactly quantif= y nothing, and all non-"no"
>> cardinalities can be defined by mea= ns of contrast to "no": "nonai". If
>> I had to fill the inner quantifier for "no lo xo broda" from your<= br>>> example, I might say "nonai".
>
> There's no= such grammatical contruct,

no nai =3D PA NAI or PA UI =3D PA*=

http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index= .php?page=3Dzasni+gerna+cenba+vreji

"NAI: Extended its gr= ammar to that of indicators, i.e. it is allowed
after any word."

"nonai" would have the composite meaning of "other = than zero". And the
set of cardinal numbers which are "other than zero" = seem more than
undefinable:

But that page is not canon. That's xorxes' proposed exten= sion of the grammar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w= iki/Cardinal_number

> but again, I would hate to think
> tha= t you can mean by that negatives, or imaginary numbers.

"PA me= i" never means a negative or imaginary number, insofar as the
interlocuters properly understand what cardinality is about.

That's fine. Like I said, if you are wiling to restrict i= ts domain in that way, I have no problem with that. But we already HA= VE a construct that means that, za'uno So you don't have to reinvent = the wheel. "nonai" would include things like ka'o and ni'ure. <= /div>

Such 'restrictive' compositions exis= t in other parts of the language.
For example, we don't say "ci lo pa ge= rku", because, however
syntactically valid, "ci" makes no sense in the composition that it's
in= . Likewise, we shouldn't assume "nonai mei" could mean negatives or
imag= inary numbers, because such are never to be in the scope set by
"mei" in its compositional relation to the preceding PA.

But like I said, if you mean "greater than zero", than SAY that= , not "non-zero". Otherwise, that's as foolish as saying someth= ing like "magnetic poles always come in pairs, therefore when I say 'three = poles', I really mean 'four poles' " (imperfect analogy, but you get my dri= ft). "nonaimei", it's very true, I might not imagine might mean anyth= ing other than non-negative reals, but "nonai" by itself does NOT suggest t= hat, which is what you previously stated. "za'uno" on the other hand, alway= s does. Why not use it?

--gejyspa

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