From lojban+bncCOTEtqyUDhDqwajzBBoEqcsV0g@googlegroups.com Fri Sep 09 07:21:42 2011 Received: from mail-pz0-f57.google.com ([209.85.210.57]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R21xb-0008V7-0h; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:42 -0700 Received: by pzk5 with SMTP id 5sf3440009pzk.12 for ; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:32 -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:references :mime-version:content-type:content-disposition:in-reply-to: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=R/zMD7ykg4DCLDMYZcENtxL0fo7Elc+wd6hYPDoknPo=; b=iuhqbyZeFryGU+rVoIbW3CNUt13ATGMfRr3A+o3s32Tcp5RoezrPnPdnw/j6kdTLvE rctMCziCTd7rQ3lhZrYS4NypG39Uso7Kwu5TN8yEhjoj4XKpEgDLQ+voz6vArzwBY4+F AE4NG9TV4bZocZuC71c/glZNcGZonoRhADjIo= Received: by 10.68.1.134 with SMTP id 6mr644626pbm.34.1315578090465; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:30 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.68.33.194 with SMTP id t2ls2641608pbi.0.gmail; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.32.194 with SMTP id l2mr1438977pbi.14.1315578089787; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.32.194 with SMTP id l2mr1438976pbi.14.1315578089774; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (mx.sdf.org. [192.94.73.19]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id ll18si10751051pbb.0.2011.09.09.07.21.29 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:21:29 -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 p89ELTx6029000 for ; Fri, 9 Sep 2011 14:21:29 GMT Received: from martin by gonzales.homelinux.org with local (Exim 4.75) (envelope-from ) id 1R21xQ-0000EQ-TA for lojban@googlegroups.com; Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:21:28 -0400 Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 10:21:28 -0400 From: Martin Bays To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable Message-ID: <20110909142128.GA18556@gonzales> References: <20110907030141.GA30833@gonzales> <20110908003133.GJ30833@gonzales> <20110908020307.GK30833@gonzales> <20110908034236.GM30833@gonzales> <20110909002555.GA14986@gonzales> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="GvXjxJ+pjyke8COw" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-PGP-Key: http://mbays.freeshell.org/pubkey.asc X-PGP-KeyId: B5FB2CD6 X-cunselcu'a-valsi: gasnu 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: , --GvXjxJ+pjyke8COw Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable * Thursday, 2011-09-08 at 23:42 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas : > 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. >=20 > 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. Yes. But the result is that if the listener thinks a certain domain of discourse is plausible and that an E-A claim is being made there, they must also consider that a different domain of discourse was intended with the result that an A-E claim is being made for the first domain of discourse. So there's effective ambiguity of logical form. > > But how would you disambiguate to precisely say "someone loves > > everyone"? >=20 > "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. But with your zo'e, mixed interpretations are necessary, e.g. to explain {ro prenu cu se prami zo'e noi prenu}. So I think this is no different =66rom the "some dogs love every human" example. Do you think you can use {su'o gerku} there, despite the "chihuauas" and "German shephards" interpretation? If so, why? > >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)) >=20 > 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. >=20 > >> 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? >=20 > I find them all over the place, yes. >=20 > >> "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. >=20 > Just "things": "I love buying things, but then I never know where to > put them." But the 'them' doesn't mean 'things in general', it specifically refers to those bought in the first clause. So... > > 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. >=20 > 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." =2E..I don't think that's really right. --GvXjxJ+pjyke8COw Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk5qIOgACgkQULC7OLX7LNZBygCfcMEGuQR5N0WFoItyeK9ISOvL LFwAn2jPzPWSHQOTvKkc53QUANHeeh+v =gl57 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --GvXjxJ+pjyke8COw--