From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRCF7MnyBBoEbZIQmA@googlegroups.com Mon Aug 22 08:30:31 2011 Received: from mail-qw0-f61.google.com ([209.85.216.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1QvWSF-0005g7-4r; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:30:30 -0700 Received: by qwh5 with SMTP id 5sf5897616qwh.16 for ; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:30:16 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-sender :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list :list-id:x-google-group-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=/VjOUjUtB+/0CdCB1oQkjaccbT6S8aWGF/FNQ3AoEUA=; b=ZZNImZNgRr1JAHGCk9HwqqfUQOg6fZrpUedoBC62mDaKYSjenQQdcRwZpob5LRfVQK F38LR17H43L8qqHUwVsL5VC74hvwBahMmInbDH8CTbt6/p1BpNRGmnQONpJxHH55xNZ7 mJKLZgRQFPjJhJWZb/FfrrG/71O0ajO8WI+bQ= Received: by 10.229.31.136 with SMTP id y8mr255526qcc.41.1314027013532; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:30:13 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.224.190.74 with SMTP id dh10ls1862501qab.0.gmail; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:30:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.213.1 with SMTP id gu1mr1845093qab.20.1314026918292; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.213.1 with SMTP id gu1mr1845092qab.20.1314026918282; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-vx0-f169.google.com ([209.85.220.169]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id i2si3609352qcv.1.2011.08.22.08.28.38 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.220.169 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.220.169; Received: by mail-vx0-f169.google.com with SMTP id 3so4600733vxj.28 for ; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:28:38 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.22.162 with SMTP id e2mr2544565vdf.299.1314026918112; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:28:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.101.170 with HTTP; Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:28:37 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20110822102301.GA24775@SDF.ORG> References: <20110817114634.GE6674@gonzales> <1313593494.36002.YahooMailRC@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20110819002533.GG6674@gonzales> <20110819100840.GA27065@SDF.ORG> <20110820105209.GD25668@SDF.ORG> <20110820195330.GB19624@SDF.ORG> <20110822102301.GA24775@SDF.ORG> Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:28:37 -0300 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] xorlo and masses From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Sender: jjllambias@gmail.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.220.169 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=jjllambias@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: X-Google-Group-Id: 1004133512417 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 Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Martin Bays wrote: > > We seem to want that a simple sumti, like {lo broda} or {ko'a}, should ha= ve > interpretation a Whole, which I'll denote [lo broda] resp. [ko'a]. If we talk in terms of plural reference, then there need be no Wholes. Presumably both metalanguages are reducible to one another, but I'm not sure if the reduction is always trivial. I think Whole-metalanguage goes with purely singular reference, and plural reference should not be mixed with Whole-metalanguage. At least part of the reason we often don't seem to get very far with these discussions is that everybody uses their own choice of metalanguage and the confusion created by the mix often clouds any points of contention. If we use Wholes, then (at least in my understanding of Lojban) "ro" is not the universal quantifier over Wholes. I suggest using "ro'oi" for the universal quantifier in that case, which corresponds to the plural universal quantifier in terms of plural reference. "ro" quantifies over atoms in Whole-metalanguage, and it is the singular universal quantifier in terms of plural reference. This is what causes the weird mix we have of plural reference and singular quantification, (or alternatively reference to Wholes with quantification over atoms) but no other option seems to do what we most often want to do. > Then you'd have that {re ko'a broda} means that in the set of wholes > =A0 =A0{ X partof [ko'a] | broda(X) } , > there are precisely two minimal elements? > > That seems reasonable; but it doesn't explain {ro ko'a broda}. > > How, without invoking absolute atoms, can you give a meaning to > {ro ko'a broda} based only on the Whole [ko'a] and on the meaning of > {broda}? I agree that we end up invoking atoms, but maybe we mean different things by "absolute atoms". In some (many) contexts the atoms will be people, in other contexts they may be human scale "dacti", and so on. And these atoms can change from sentence to sentence, and perhaps even from reference to reference in the same sentence. What we probably don't need is context independent absolute atoms. Once we have settled on an interpretation, then we do have absolute atoms for that interpretation, but there's no guarantee that the next sentence won't bring up the need to reassess what the "absolute" atoms are. > If broda is brodi-distributive (and brodi is considered somehow > canonical in this respect), you could have {ro ko'a broda} mean that > all brodi-atoms below [ko'a] satisfy broda. But what then about highly > non-distributive predicates like S(X) :=3D {X sruri ko'e}? In general, > we can't expect to have anything better than S being S-distributive. > So following the same rule, {ro ko'a sruri ko'e} would mean that every > S-atom below ko'a satisfies S, which is an uninformative tautology. > > I also don't see how to formalise your atomising poi. I think my "poi brodi" can only be suggestive: by introducing a predicate with a strong affinity for certain type of atoms (like "prenu"), you help the listener pick the right interpretation. But I think you can't ever force the listener into an interpretation, you can only guide them there. If "prenu" has an interpretation where it is non-distributive over certain atoms, adding "poi prenu" does not exclude the possibility that the reference is to those atoms (or to Wholes that have those atoms as its parts). "lo sruri be lo dinju", without other contextual clues, could refer to people, rocks, sidewalks, air, groups of people, who knows what else. "lo sruri be lo dinju be'o poi prenu" could be people or groups of people, but it's much more likely just people because if the atoms were meant to be groups of people you could have said more clearly "lo sruri be lo dinju be'o poi gunma be lo prenu". 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.