From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRDEza7zBBoEk9PaJA@googlegroups.com Sat Sep 10 11:05:04 2011 Received: from mail-ww0-f61.google.com ([74.125.82.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R2RvJ-00005n-3e; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:05:04 -0700 Received: by wwe5 with SMTP id 5sf204269wwe.16 for ; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:53 -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=JUa7Fgedh24bPGQ51sYOkcfiVNwLc1C37fq9A+/ucEc=; b=yrhOLQPIRPm0bdCo7P1Zt5N69CmmqkhdieCYSMqJ4bL6OtyrML81wZPv2CnTNxH35I b32YPCSBx9QnqoyfDYgtiAF00twtRME5nhZRS8D1ying4qj3f878IcThPmtnWbTPUmTU 0gQvZtYxyWSCkbiSnwmzxXviOz+JX4XF34Nkc= Received: by 10.216.133.208 with SMTP id q58mr301359wei.22.1315677892632; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:52 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.213.100.213 with SMTP id z21ls1699154ebn.1.gmail; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.213.13.199 with SMTP id d7mr142872eba.3.1315677891416; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.213.13.199 with SMTP id d7mr142871eba.3.1315677891390; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-fx0-f41.google.com (mail-fx0-f41.google.com [209.85.161.41]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p10si292113fak.1.2011.09.10.11.04.51 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.161.41 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.161.41; Received: by fxh17 with SMTP id 17so372066fxh.28 for ; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.223.49.139 with SMTP id v11mr1543670faf.21.1315677891209; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.152.23.233 with HTTP; Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:04:51 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20110910151019.GI30010@gonzales> References: <20110908020307.GK30833@gonzales> <20110908034236.GM30833@gonzales> <20110909002555.GA14986@gonzales> <20110909142128.GA18556@gonzales> <20110910000859.GG30010@gonzales> <20110910151019.GI30010@gonzales> Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 15:04:51 -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 209.85.161.41 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 Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Martin Bays wrote: > * Saturday, 2011-09-10 at 10:43 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas : >> >> 1L: ro prenu cu se prami su'o tciuaua >> 1E: Everyone is loved by some chihuahua. >> >> 2L: ro prenu cu se prami zo'e noi tciuaua >> 2E: Everyone is loved by chihuauas. >> >> 3L: zo'e noi tciuaua cu prami ro prenu >> 3E: Chihuahuas love everyone. >> >> 4L: su'o tciuaua cu prami ro prenu >> 4E: Some chihuahua loves everyone. >> >> We also have two domains of discourse: >> >> D1 =3D {lo prenu ku xi pa, lo prenu ku xi re, lo prenu ku xi ci, .., lo >> tciuaua ku xi pa, lo tciuaua ku xi re, ...} >> =A0 =A0 =A0=3D {person_1, person_2, person_3, ...., chihuahua_1, chihuah= ua_2, ...} >> >> D2 =3D {lo prenu ku xi pa, lo prenu ku xi re, lo prenu ku xi ci, .., lo = tciuaua} >> =A0 =A0 =A0=3D {person_1, person_2, person_3, ...., chihuahuas} >> >> D1 and D2 are not the same domain. Sentences 1 and 4 "put us" in >> domain D1, while sentences 2 and 3 "put us" is domain D2. By that I >> mean that those are the natural domains in which to interpret those >> sentences without any more context. Do we agree so far? > > Not entirely. I think 1E-4E could just as well be interpreted in the > union D12 of D1 and D2 - because a sentence involving "some chihuahua" > can't have the generic "chihuahuas" as an witness, and although > (as in Carlson) a predication involving "chihuahuas" is ambiguous > between being about the generic and about its > manifestations/stages/whatever, that doesn't mean the domain of > discourse has to be different for different interpretations. The English situation is additionally complicated by the singular/plural morphology. You say that "some chihuahua" can't have chihuahuas as a witness, even when chihuahuas are in the domain of discourse. But why is that? Is it because only chihuahuas can be a witness, and chihuahuas are not chihuahuas? That can't be the reason because chihuahuas are indeed chihuahuas. I think it has to do with something like the witness has to satisfy "...is a chihuahua", and not just "...are chihuahuas". So those two are different predicates in English, at least when the domain of discourse is D12. In Lojban we have to make do with "tciuaua" for both. > You seem to be saying that D12 is an intrinsically unnatural domain for > lojban. That seems to be a difference from english. I'm saying a domain like D12 needs extra work. For example, instead of a single predicate "tciuaua" we need two predicates, to go with the English "... is a chihuahua" and "... are chihuahuas", which we would have to use instead of the plain "tciuaua" to properly restrict the quantifier. > I think we agree: > D1 |=3D 1L > implies D2 |=3D 2L > implies D2 |=3D 3L > implies D2 |=3D 4L > > (where "D |=3D S" means "sentence S holds in domain of discourse D") With the caveat that it would require some very strong context to interpret 4L in D2. > So there's no actual contradiction; it's just that if I claim 4L and you > want to deduce something about D1 from it, you have two ways to proceed > - you can (i) assume I'm claiming D1 |=3D 4L, or you can (ii) assume I'm > claiming D2 |=3D 4L. Right. One of my interpretations is bound to be wrong and without more context, I would bet it would be (ii) that is wrong. > By the above deduction, you can't deduce from (ii) > more than D1 |=3D 1L. (In general, you won't even be able to deduce that > much.) > > This is the (weak) sense in which there's an ambiguity of logical form. And I don't see how this kind of ambiguity is avoidable, other than by externally fixing one and only one domain of discourse for every utterance. But then Lojban would cease being a normal human language. > Now you say D2 is not a "natural domain" for 4L. That does sidestep > this issue. It also makes determination of what is and what isn't > a natural domain for a sentence a crucial part of the semantics of the > language... do you think there's a coherent general theory of that (say > for the small 'extensional' fragment of the language we've been > mostly considering in these threads, which excludes tenses and NU and so > on)? If there is, we are very far from knowing it. But we do have some rules of thumb, like the unlikelyhood of having kinds and their manifestation present in the same domain without any predicate like "x1 is an individual x2" being used, or the unlikelyhood of quantifiers ranging over singleton domains. > (In fact, I *would* like to claim that 1L logically implies 2L, because > I would still like to analyse {zo'e} (but not {lo}) as in the subject > line of this thread. But that's beside the point.) So you would like to claim D1 |=3D 1L implies D1 |=3D 2L and that D1 is a natural/preferred domain for 1L. If that's how you want to analyse "zo'e", you still have to account for the "obvious" as opposed to the "irrelevant" sense of "zo'e". As in: - xu do djica lo nu klama lo zarci - u'u mi na kakne lo nu klama .i ei mi klama lo drata "Do you want to come to the market?" "Sorry, I can't go. I have to go somewhere else." That should not come out as "I can't go anywhere." > Do you know if there's anything in the formal semantics literature on > this? Nothing I can point to, but I'm far from knowledgeable on the subject. 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.