From lojban+bncCIywt_XDCRCX_-LzBBoE92n9wQ@googlegroups.com Tue Sep 20 09:30:25 2011 Received: from mail-gy0-f189.google.com ([209.85.160.189]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R63DC-0005Js-LR; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:25 -0700 Received: by gya6 with SMTP id 6sf864444gya.16 for ; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:16 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:x-yahoo-newman-property:x-yahoo-newman-id :x-ymail-osg:x-mailer:references:message-id:date:from:subject:to :in-reply-to:mime-version: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=gpNy+MD0vre5xnPRLGtkfW2911/Bn/SAG4ijK6LBJ0I=; b=FgmAh0fe8RZK1qA5vAYMToK0EIauViodem+Q731h2Xz0hd432kHtqmuny4KPOHS8u1 NTU1wKSMzG15RkDdsjHjOdx41Hr7UpIL430y+PXEdjxgcKaeUqrPpJbip+4w4E47b39s KHD1Cl2/dwAFjXOxjufBKWy19pTznwypWCOPQ= Received: by 10.147.7.26 with SMTP id k26mr885087yai.14.1316536215346; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:15 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.90.211.7 with SMTP id j7ls2420823agg.3.gmail; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.236.181.132 with SMTP id l4mr4668554yhm.7.1316536213663; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.236.181.132 with SMTP id l4mr4668551yhm.7.1316536213648; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nm15.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com (nm15.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com. [66.94.237.216]) by gmr-mx.google.com with SMTP id u21si409399ybu.0.2011.09.20.09.30.13; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of kali9putra@yahoo.com designates 66.94.237.216 as permitted sender) client-ip=66.94.237.216; Received: from [66.94.237.198] by nm15.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 20 Sep 2011 16:30:13 -0000 Received: from [66.94.237.106] by tm9.access.bullet.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 20 Sep 2011 16:30:13 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp1011.access.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 20 Sep 2011 16:30:13 -0000 X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 286175.10558.bm@omp1011.access.mail.mud.yahoo.com Received: (qmail 79691 invoked by uid 60001); 20 Sep 2011 16:30:10 -0000 X-YMail-OSG: V8pl6SQVM1mNxOM7bzKu3oq.wjy4TnTuhf4unqi52xvMxcx 0DzMgAEW5FNqrkeDjlYlmZ5IUB3UX7GOdzou9h2nqtkZ53fjaonQO_J7TU7z UxJTqTrqYJaKI92s8XmX5TKinn6r97Gra4E2Lg6U2suUMx298HbTQmnMK9EA 5OOif0SasNBx0Ro.N.4u_Q5d6yzjH.uuQd2W.10QHmuA1SlHFO7cyml3TK7v Cdl1X3Z3YyDiTwYQvQDYY900WVPfUjwT8n3WtdlfikF6SEb9Cyk6j5EZ5yYl 4J4g.Gl80.ldOb3iw4OL.gl3lAP387A3Z6gcJpi1Vo42D29.UM9vVJ9pG.bx 23o8q7Vo2v3Belm4ehiK.iogmQXWCQ_JUy60fIAYPEuIWczq0K0RVfK.IXxo TUrIC9RTJhafe3mD_4glKsoX_l9pXzqNP7ShDktPtYp0lSQT7SVm4A9sfG3Q 1iGtKIUTrtLLzRshGTx8_YpBIgVBvHk0osCNyC7ohLMdLlqseYdwJ3R4gobp wqWkQB23IhpKgNXvvAUJTxTAVcpbUN.yS3g.cJENxoP_hD9OHURK4gqGFcFh 537TUoxys_6iwWck0rz_olqywssapitM0YE1BUiei8Z.33uXeVjMrYbIv5Cj lYer.8EYwnVx8 Received: from [99.92.108.41] by web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:09 PDT X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/574 YahooMailWebService/0.8.113.315625 References: <20110916000632.GD7274@gonzales> <20110918172927.GA4310@gonzales> <20110918213323.GB6878@gonzales> <20110919013653.GC6878@gonzales> <20110919231314.GI4310@gonzales> <20110920034640.GK4310@gonzales> Message-ID: <1316536209.64893.YahooMailRC@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:30:09 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable To: lojban@googlegroups.com In-Reply-To: <20110920034640.GK4310@gonzales> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Original-Sender: kali9putra@yahoo.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of kali9putra@yahoo.com designates 66.94.237.216 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=kali9putra@yahoo.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@yahoo.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 No classifiers because Lojban (in keeping with its SAE status) is rigorousl= y=20 count. In fact, one ongoing problem in Lojban has been how to get mass ter= ms in=20 where they are "necessary" (so much, again for S-WH). L-sets help a bit. = It's=20 not clear that kinds do. ----- Original Message ---- From: Martin Bays To: lojban@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, September 19, 2011 10:46:40 PM Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural= =20 variable * Monday, 2011-09-19 at 21:28 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas : > On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 8:13 PM, Martin Bays wrote: > > > > In "I am in my garden", the world is specified. So the sentence is true > > iff it holds of the referent of 'I' that it is, in that world, in my > > garden. Nothing else concerning 'I' is involved. > > > > The same goes for the lions, except that there are likely many lions in > > the specified world. >=20 > By "world" do you mean "domain of discourse"? Ah, yes, I should define my terms. I'm assuming by now a semantics along the lines of that used in Montague grammar (and, if I understand correctly, essentially all subsequent work in formal semantics), basically being Kripke semantics. See section 2 of Montague's "The Proper Treatment Of Quantification in Ordinary English" (which at the time of writing can be found here: www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter= /0631215417%5CPortner.pdf ) for details, but to quickly outline (to fix notation, and for the benefit of any readers not familiar with it): our model consists of a universe aka domain of discourse, and a set of possible worlds and a set of temporal instants. Then e.g. a predicate P is 'really' a function from possible-world+time coordinates w - which for short (and because we don't necessarily want to tie ourselves too closely to this treatment of tenses) I've just been terming 'worlds', and which Chierchia calls 'situations' - to predicates in the usual sense on the universe (i.e. functions from some power of the universe to {True,False}); we can write this latter predicate P_w. Similarly, the interpretation of e.g. 'Alice' is the function which given a world, picks out the element Alice_w in that world. (We might, as Montague does, ask that this be the *same* element each time, but I'm not sure that's really important.) The intention then is that we interpret a sentence in a fixed such model, this being a recursive process which involves interpreting subformulas in the same model. So anyway: by "there are many lions in the specified world", I meant that many elements of the universe satisfy the unary predicate lions_w, where w is the world indicated by the context - whose co-ordinates were (this actual possible world, now). > How is it specified? It seems that there are likely many lion > manifestations just as there are likely many stages of me in our > world. From a metaphysical perspective it is hard to think of lions > without lion manifestations, but it is just as hard to think of me > without stages of me. If there is a preference for domains of > discourse with many lion manifestations over domains of discourse with > many stages of me it does not seem to come from any formal law of > language. I'm afraid the idea of 'stages of me' being things in the domain of discourse doesn't seem to fit in this framework. We have me_w for various w, which might correspond to whatever it is you mean by a stage, but we have one for each w. > >> It just says that if my garden is being ruined, it must be by > >> something other than lions, or that if lions are ruining something, it > >> must be something other than my garden, or if lions are doing > >> something to my garden, it must be something other than ruining it, > >> and so on. You may infer from it that no lion is ruining my garden, > >> but that's not what it means. > > > > Ah, or is it that you're introducing something too subtle for me to > > understand? Are you considering as part of the meaning of a sentence > > something other than its truth conditions? i.e. would you agree that th= e > > converse of the inference you just accepted is also valid? >=20 > We've discussed this kind of inference, that involves changing the > domain of discourse. That's the only subtlety I mean to introduce: in > the original domain of discourse there weren't any lion > manifestations, and so no logical inference to something involving > such things would be possible. But... we can easily change the domain > of discourse and then the sentence about lion manifestations would be > true. But this is not a logical inference, it's a change to a new > model of the world: >=20 > lo cinfo cu daspo lo mi purdi .i sa'e su'o cinfo cu daspo lo mi purdi > "Lions are destroying my garden. More precisely, some lions are > destroying my garden." >=20 > The second sentence just uses a more fine-grained model of the world. Right, yes. I had forgotten about this. It seems severely unnatural to me to have a domain of discourse which contains lionkind but no lions. It also screws with Chierchia's definition of kinds. The problems with counting and so on which arise when we mix kinds and instances could be rectified by simply declaring that {da} and {[quantifier] [selbri]} never get kinds - i.e. the corresponding variables are over 'mundane' singular objects (AT minus K, in Chierchia's notation). I suggested something like this before, and I think you complained that we shouldn't be separating out kinds from mundanes... but since Chierchia does it, I feel licensed to push again for an explanation of what would go so wrong if we did separate them out. > >> I don't want to introduce at any point an existential claim about > >> individual lions. (If you do, you must then make exceptions for > >> intensional contexts.) > > > > What do you mean? > > > > (I fear I know what you mean, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.) >=20 > "I am hunting lions" can be true even if there is no lion > manifestation such that I am hunting it. That isn't what I feared. Phew. I don't see an exception here. 'lions' there still involves an existential. In the notation above, I think it's I_w hunt_w (\lambda w. \exists l. lions_w(l)) . > > So it does seem that the ontology Chierchia presents in my favourite > > paper does fit rather well with your {lo} - you have it always giving > > a Skolem function with values in that universe. > > > > Similarly for {zo'e}. > > > > Correct? >=20 > I'm still reading the paper, so I'm not sure I can say much yet. > Chierchia starts by classifying languages into three groups: [+arg, > -pred] (Chinese), [-arg, +pred] (Romance) and [+arg, +pred] (Germanic, > Slavic). As far as I can tell, Lojban should fall flatly with the > Romance languages in this classification, since whatever syntactic > nouns it may be said to have are exclusively predicative. I think so, to the extent this classification applies at all... but with the exception of cmene, we don't really have nouns or noun phrases at all. We're just weird. > On the other hand, Lojban has no plurals, which makes it more like > Chinese in that respect. But no classifiers. Very weird ;) Martin --=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.