From lojban+bncCAAQ8qSS8gQaBP7RA5g@googlegroups.com Thu Aug 11 19:39:59 2011 Received: from mail-gy0-f189.google.com ([209.85.160.189]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1QrhfA-0006yE-Ss; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:39:59 -0700 Received: by gyc15 with SMTP id 15sf3923711gyc.16 for ; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:39:50 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:date:from:to:subject:message-id :mime-version:content-type:content-disposition:x-pgp-key:x-pgp-keyid :x-cunselcu'a-valsi:user-agent: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; bh=76cGrBEkRKUCJkJqhXgrwQNr2c+nIA7bP3smkQOY6vY=; b=pXUAUOdLGchrJ/8nVn1VYeSfUngpbR4znlhVnpTGKChy4Y3jJ2euJg+6TeFsiXjIdv 15flKzhiO3LaeQ55MAzBaUrWYyxrJF6GRIDXwILiNQ4igfYwManrAijzDv56rQhIAmJu Z48EkZ+6VE+8zIHF6metXa78AbIHTwEwKe/iw= Received: by 10.236.180.226 with SMTP id j62mr130841yhm.17.1313116786627; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:39:46 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.100.30.24 with SMTP id d24ls9374189and.6.gmail; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:39:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.236.176.40 with SMTP id a28mr1016245yhm.7.1313116785792; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:39:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.151.138.5 with SMTP id q5msybn; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:11:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.101.21.5 with SMTP id y5mr2361124ani.14.1313057497346; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:11:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.101.21.5 with SMTP id y5mr2361122ani.14.1313057497327; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:11:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (mx.sdf.org [192.94.73.19]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id kr11si799372pbb.1.2011.08.11.03.11.36 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:11:36 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of mbays@sdf.org designates 192.94.73.19 as permitted sender) client-ip=192.94.73.19; Received: from gonzales.homelinux.org (root@sverige.freeshell.org [192.94.73.4]) by sdf.lonestar.org (8.14.4/8.14.3) with ESMTP id p7BABZDT002335 for ; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:11:35 GMT Received: from martin by gonzales.homelinux.org with local (Exim 4.75) (envelope-from ) id 1QrSEg-0005jw-W3 for lojban@googlegroups.com; Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:11:35 +0200 Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:11:34 +0200 From: Martin Bays To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: [lojban] xorlo and masses Message-ID: <20110811101134.GF10697@gonzales> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="ChQOR20MqfxkMJg9" Content-Disposition: inline X-PGP-Key: http://mbays.freeshell.org/pubkey.asc X-PGP-KeyId: B5FB2CD6 X-cunselcu'a-valsi: rutni User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-Original-Sender: mbays@sdf.org X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of mbays@sdf.org designates 192.94.73.19 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=mbays@sdf.org 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: , --ChQOR20MqfxkMJg9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable That is, I know, the kind of subject line to make those who lived through the gadri wars shudder. But my question is simple and hopefully simply resolved. =46rom the gadri BPFK section: """ An individual can be anything, including a group, a set, a substance, a number, etc. {lo broda} can refer to one or more individuals. {lo'i broda} can refer only to those individuals that are sets. {loi broda} can refer only to those individuals that are groups ('masses'). """ =46rom the Indirect Referers section """ lu'a (LAhE) Individual. (Member.) 1. It converts a sumti into another sumti. The converted sumti points to the referents of the unconverted sumti, removing any indication of collectivization if there was any. """ These seem to indicate conflicting semantics for handling of masses. (I'll use 'mass' in the CLL sense, intended to be synonymous with 'gunma'/'group'/'collective'/'plurality') The first appears to indicate that masses are still first-class entities, such that e.g. in {lo tadni cu sruri le dinju}, the referents of {lo tadni} are masses of students, not individual students. In particular, it is reasonable for that {lo tadni} to have just one referent. The second appears to indicate that sumti can sometimes be 'flagged' as being interpreted collectively - the referents are the same whether it is so flagged or not, but if it is so flagged then a bridi involving it is understood to hold of the mass consisting of the referents, rather than distributively of the referents themselves. Admittedly, these two interpretations are not literally inconsistent - you *could* have first-class masses *and* mass-flagging, it would just be very confusing. Is this really what was intended? Things are confused even furtherly by the example given on the gadri page of: lo tadni cu sruri le dinju gi'e krixa Students are surrounding the building and yelling. , which seems (in the context of the use of this kind of example in the lingustics literature) to suggest that the referents of {lo tadni} are acting as a mass in the first bridi and distributively in the second. Which would need the distributivity flag to have third value of "ambiguous", or something like that... Personally, I think the first interpretation (first-class masses which gadri can return) fits best with the rest of lojban - although it leaves open the question of how to specify that you *don't* want masses as the referents when using gadri... {ro lo tadni} is no good, as it could be interpreted as quantifying over some (perhaps just 1) masses which are the referents of {lo tadni}. {lo tadni poi na gunma su'o tadni} is the best I can come up with. Hoping for clarification, Martin --ChQOR20MqfxkMJg9 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk5DqtYACgkQULC7OLX7LNZRYQCeOVOefWHxww84U4awOkvia7JT RnYAoJclMdgR25TP5uGWCMLMDfUTtnF/ =+QM0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --ChQOR20MqfxkMJg9--