From lojban+bncCOTEtqyUDhCS6LPzBBoE8YuBog@googlegroups.com Sun Sep 11 10:47:10 2011 Received: from mail-pz0-f57.google.com ([209.85.210.57]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R2o7W-0008AD-0H; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:47:09 -0700 Received: by pzk5 with SMTP id 5sf8370896pzk.12 for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:46:59 -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=l5Bk3gj+Mkx6MDrXNGpNf4KYxL0qiRr7AEGUBnVZkR0=; b=GrWVcwqWNwnet3Yr2bK6nO0OZd9PWO3B05a/cYxSRHpRYUeq+681Q2MFNrQPFheWGI W7Ku9xMS6rxGUDZbLd7jumZhjV/15/dIuDdLwgXh/+1sUIdE6AKzYItP8S6YRMWWP+Gw EEhbXRCxClfQyQrcVILWtcNJIbTiDsH2dS2x4= Received: by 10.68.5.9 with SMTP id o9mr1491931pbo.38.1315763218593; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:46:58 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.68.155.210 with SMTP id vy18ls10664539pbb.2.gmail; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.66.3 with SMTP id b3mr3215553pbt.3.1315763217948; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.66.3 with SMTP id b3mr3215552pbt.3.1315763217939; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (mx.sdf.org. [192.94.73.19]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id j4si19245620pbi.2.2011.09.11.10.46.57 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:46:57 -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 p8BHkvL4004474 for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 17:46:57 GMT Received: from martin by gonzales.homelinux.org with local (Exim 4.75) (envelope-from ) id 1R2o7M-0005vi-V8 for lojban@googlegroups.com; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:46:56 -0400 Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:46:56 -0400 From: Martin Bays To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable Message-ID: <20110911174656.GJ30010@gonzales> References: <20110908034236.GM30833@gonzales> <20110909002555.GA14986@gonzales> <20110909142128.GA18556@gonzales> <20110910000859.GG30010@gonzales> <20110910151019.GI30010@gonzales> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="k18oBAwMkTg3OUap" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-PGP-Key: http://mbays.freeshell.org/pubkey.asc X-PGP-KeyId: B5FB2CD6 X-cunselcu'a-valsi: punli 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: , --k18oBAwMkTg3OUap Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable [notational note: I looked again at some of the formal semantics literature, and it seems that 'kind' is preferred to 'generic' for the abstract individuals like 'chihuahuas' we've been talking about - which I think corresponds to what are called 'kinds' in e.g. Chierchia "References to Kinds across Languages" 1998; 'generic' seems to be reserved for the {lo'e} idea of "typical individuals". I use 'kind' below.] * Saturday, 2011-09-10 at 15:04 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas : > 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, chihu= ahua_2, ...} > >> > >> D2 =3D {lo prenu ku xi pa, lo prenu ku xi re, lo prenu ku xi ci, .., l= o 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. >=20 > 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. The situation in English is rather strange. The singular does indeed seem to refer specifically to individuals. Meanwhile the plural is ambiguous between pluralities of individuals and pluralities of strict subkinds - "some chihuahuas" can't be witnessed by the kind 'chihuahuas', but it *can* be witnessed by 'black chihuahuas' or 'dead chihuahuas'. So it seems English does differentiate between kinds and mundanes, but it confuses the two in plurals. This does seem to really be a binary ambiguity, though. I've tested a few native english speakers on the phrase "some dogs love everyone; indeed, chihuahuas do", and they report understanding the intention, but experiencing some surprise on reaching the second clause and having to re-evaluate the first clause to refer to kinds rather than individuals. Further evidence for its binary nature: *"many dogs love everyone; indeed Barney does, chihuahuas do..." is, I think, semantically anomalous. I don't see why we should import this ambiguity to lojban. Even apart =66rom all the problems it causes which it doesn't cause in english ('I hate dogs' doesn't imply 'I hate one or more dogs', even when interpreted in the same domain of discourse), I would think it unlojbanic to have a binary ambiguity - especially one which can't be straightforwardly and clearly disambiguated. > > You seem to be saying that D12 is an intrinsically unnatural domain for > > lojban. That seems to be a difference from english. >=20 > 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. Yes, I think something like this might be the solution. We allow domains like D12 as a matter of course, and have a new predicate corresponding to the kind sense of "... are chihuahuas" - i.e. meaning "is a (non-strict) subkind of the kind 'chihuahuas'". It and {tciuaua} should be mutually exclusive. If we have a way of getting explicitly at the kind 'tciuauas', we can then use {klesi} to get at subkinds. So we need something corresponding to Chierchia's down operator. This shouldn't be {lo'e}, because that's about genericity. I'm wondering whether it could indeed be {lo} - using Chierchia's type-shifting (which is similar to Carlson's quantification over stages) to get back to existential quantification over instances. The crucial change from what you've been suggesting would be that although {lo broda cu broda} would hold, and {lo broda} would be referring to an individual in our universe, it would *not* follow that this individual satisfies the x1 of {broda} in the usual sense - rather, {lo broda cu broda} would transform by type-shifting to {su'o da poi [instance-of] lo broda cu broda} (where {me} might or might not work for [instance-of]). I'll read some more of Chierchia and see if I can come up with a proposal along these lines which would satisfy us both (and hopefully everyone else). > > (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.) >=20 > So you would like to claim >=20 > D1 |=3D 1L > implies D1 |=3D 2L >=20 > and that D1 is a natural/preferred domain for 1L. >=20 > 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: >=20 > - 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." >=20 > That should not come out as "I can't go anywhere." Hmm. Yes, it isn't a simple existential quantifier. But how about just having the domain of the existential quantification be contextually determined - i.e. the quantifier is "for some xs such that context suggests I would likely be talking about xs here". The domain 'everything' would always be plausible; other domains like {the market we just mentioned} or 'all markets' would be plausible in certain contexts. Martin --k18oBAwMkTg3OUap Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk5s9BAACgkQULC7OLX7LNY3bgCgnGq+niUAoCHbi9goq9u98oQY w6gAoOeyIKz3DI8gqLvsiZeBaeAveRu2 =Ro3F -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --k18oBAwMkTg3OUap--