From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRCy-qXzBBoEShwJdA@googlegroups.com Thu Sep 08 19:43:11 2011 Received: from mail-vx0-f189.google.com ([209.85.220.189]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R1r3b-0004Rr-R7; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:43:10 -0700 Received: by vxk12 with SMTP id 12sf101701vxk.16 for ; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:43:01 -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=yUmR5/OUyJhflNb7OLJHqjnUcjdsN/bP5kVTTIr/iGU=; b=nAMuK3aTbjJCcEFtQklrU+nmrspZ+s/HackSeJzm8v6otG5448I5s9DhZ5T0NctJps pa5xGG5pqHom5bPsihO4w3r4rPVGGb71v8Pi1sbgsApN10RAKKUcHrf3IUlo284b3IID Oz0vNajm63kpPHexuI30GqP8OD44AGGQZ7zYE= Received: by 10.220.10.6 with SMTP id n6mr303367vcn.33.1315536178750; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:58 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.52.24.163 with SMTP id v3ls4652614vdf.3.gmail; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.21.180 with SMTP id w20mr884353vde.1.1315536178075; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.21.180 with SMTP id w20mr884352vde.1.1315536178065; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-vw0-f49.google.com (mail-vw0-f49.google.com [209.85.212.49]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id l6si2618628vdt.0.2011.09.08.19.42.57 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:57 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.212.49 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.212.49; Received: by mail-vw0-f49.google.com with SMTP id 8so537969vws.22 for ; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:57 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.156.45 with SMTP id wb13mr681667vdb.245.1315536176745; Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:42:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.163.133 with HTTP; Thu, 8 Sep 2011 19:42:56 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20110909002555.GA14986@gonzales> References: <20110907030141.GA30833@gonzales> <20110908003133.GJ30833@gonzales> <20110908020307.GK30833@gonzales> <20110908034236.GM30833@gonzales> <20110909002555.GA14986@gonzales> Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 23:42:56 -0300 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable 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 209.85.212.49 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 Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Martin Bays wrote: > * Thursday, 2011-09-08 at 19:48 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas : >> >> In general, Lojban can be more vague than English. But that's not a >> bad thing, as long as we have the means to be more precise when we >> want or need to. > > Agreed, as a general principle - though a binary ambiguity between > different logical forms is taking it too far, imho. The logical forms are completely unambiguous. The ambiguity is in the determination of the domain of discourse, which is part of the interpretation. You just can't fix the domain of discourse from within the discourse. > But how would you disambiguate to precisely say "someone loves > everyone"? "su'o prenu cu prami ro prenu", for example. The fact that quantifying over singletons violates some conversational maxim practically excludes the (top level) generic interpretation in this case. (There's still of course other intermediate level generics, as in "some peoples love all peoples". If that's what the context of the conversation calls for, that's the interpretation you will get. >Or, for that matter, "some dogs love every human"? > > (You've just indicated that {su'o gerku cu prami ro remna} won't do, > since it could be intended to be witnessed by the generic 'dogs' (or the > generics "chihuauas" and "German shephards", for that matter)) Right, just as in English. You could be more precise: "some kind of dogs love every human", "some dogs love every kind of human", "some individual dogs love every kind of human", and so on. I'm sure each of those still has more than one possible interpretation too, but the logical form is exactly the same for all of them. >> But they do exist in natural languages! They are all over the place. > > Not as widely over the place as your zo'e-within-universal analysis > would require, surely? I find them all over the place, yes. >> "I love buying stuff, but then I never know where to put it." >> >> What is that if not a generic? > > How would you analyse this using generics? "Things I like to buy"? > "Things I buy when I buy things"? I don't see. Just "things": "I love buying things, but then I never know where to put th= em." > I'd have thought this was rather an example of this weird thing English > can do sometimes, whereby an anaphoric pronoun appears to cross > a quantifier boundary, resulting in complicated semantics of which > I wouldn't like to posit a general theory... But why complicate things like that? Of course you can always paraphrase and explain in more detail what it may mean, but if the obvious analysis with "things" as a generic works, there's no need to posit a hidden completely different deep logical form. > i.e. I think the English is roughly equivalent to, though more natural > than, "I love it when there are things which I buy, but after each such > buying I don't know where to put those things". Yes, they have roughly the same meaning, but the second version has a more complicated logical form, and uses a more complex domain of discourse. That doesn't make the first version flawed in any way. > We could try to copy this semantics into lojban if we could figure out > general rules for it... but for now I'd rather just leave such > boundary-crossing uses of prosumti undefined. OK, but with the generic interpretation there is nothing odd to explain. It has just the same logical form as "I love having bought this, but now I don't know where to put it." The objection to generics is more metaphysical than logical. > (Sorry for going on about a problem you didn't even mean to raise... > getting prosumti working is something else I want to sort out) Prosumti can be problematic, but in my opinion not in this example. 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.