From lojban+bncCOTEtqyUDhDf1eTzBBoEiQLY5g@googlegroups.com Tue Sep 20 17:08:09 2011 Received: from mail-pz0-f61.google.com ([209.85.210.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R6AMA-0002RH-Rq; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:08:09 -0700 Received: by pzk32 with SMTP id 32sf99240pzk.16 for ; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:08:01 -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=o34C0FrUxA8RpteXeVlSk3ln6H9CVpLbfhO+8/4BqOY=; b=U9NejuEwlu2YxwsHcCi6oZoi9nZixm5tFa1fhD4wX2g9yMWm8yLkCqLAtFPiIbiOGZ q1X9D6eNgke9As2NlvS409I71YqFfZ9WiEFOSCTaiHUcOmGLSBddfzJ4oo7MqfPAvdbc 2SYThgyG4tBq2wJcXW5Eo3LqcCddy3stLsU2k= Received: by 10.68.22.131 with SMTP id d3mr47073pbf.72.1316563679771; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:07:59 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.68.34.164 with SMTP id a4ls3454148pbj.1.gmail; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:07:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.40.229 with SMTP id a5mr196658pbl.21.1316563678510; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:07:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.40.229 with SMTP id a5mr196657pbl.21.1316563678488; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:07:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (mx.sdf.org. [192.94.73.19]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id kr11si4161156pbb.1.2011.09.20.17.07.58 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:07:58 -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 p8L07v1f023294 for ; Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:07:57 GMT Received: from martin by gonzales.homelinux.org with local (Exim 4.75) (envelope-from ) id 1R6AM1-0002QZ-CU for lojban@googlegroups.com; Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:07:57 -0400 Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:07:57 -0400 From: Martin Bays To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable Message-ID: <20110921000757.GR4310@gonzales> References: <1316055853.22283.YahooMailRC@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20110916000632.GD7274@gonzales> <20110918172927.GA4310@gonzales> <20110918213323.GB6878@gonzales> <20110919013653.GC6878@gonzales> <1316535587.5338.YahooMailRC@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="pkBzO0lo80FoaZii" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1316535587.5338.YahooMailRC@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-PGP-Key: http://mbays.freeshell.org/pubkey.asc X-PGP-KeyId: B5FB2CD6 X-cunselcu'a-valsi: korbi 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: , --pkBzO0lo80FoaZii Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable (posting here for now; feel free not to read if theorising annoys you) * Tuesday, 2011-09-20 at 09:19 -0700 - John E Clifford : > We seem to be in a three-way cross-purpose conversation. As far as > I can understand, for xorxes {lo broda} refers to broda-kind, > a something or other (xorxes has always had trouble when we get down > to defining it) which has individual brodas as manifestations > (avatars, etc.). > > MB seems usually to think {lo broda} is down up broda, the set (C-?) > of brodas assigned to the world of the present conversation by the > function which is the meaning of {broda}. which world he seems also to > define in a fairly restricted way, a situation. I wouldn't agree with that summary. The C was an attempt to get directly at certain uses of {zo'e} and {lo} which involve, effectively, existential quantification. There was not intended to be any funny business with intensionality - the expansion to the existential was meant to be done in a world, so in particular C would depend on the world. (Which may sound at first like funny business, but hopefully not at second.) Xorxes would prefer to explain these existential uses of {zo'e} and {lo} by going via kinds. He might prefer not to put it in those terms, however. JC would, if I understand correctly, explain them by appealing to disjunctive predication - i.e. we have a plural predication which resolves itself as a disjunction over atoms. > I think {lo broda} refers to a L-set of brodas (or just a bunch of > them, without the set-talk) selected by the context. When you talk of L-sets and bunches, I am taking you to mean that we are working in a domain like Chierchia's - essentially an atomic boolean algebra - and an L-set/bunch is a not-necessarily-atomic element of the domain. My only problem with having {lo broda}, and indeed {zo'e}, give simply Skolem functions with value one of these bunches is that they are often used in expressions which seem to be about usual individuals rather than kinds, but whose meanings can't be explained by this treatment of {lo} and {zo'e} without going via kinds or introducing distributive predication. Since I consider routing via kinds to be something of a hack, and don't really understand how the hack works in general, and consider distributive predication for this purpose even more of a hack, I was hoping for another approach. Examples of such usage: For {zo'e}, pretty much any negated sentence. For {lo}, the skina sentence from the gadri BPFK section page, which I mentioned in a previous mail, will do: {ca ro nu mi rere'u catlu lo skina kei mi cpacu lo so'i se cusku poi mi na cpacu ca lo pamoi} I've no real idea how to explain that using kinds... Similarly for many of the other sentences on that page. > When it comes to using these different definitions, we generally get > about the same results, but some definitions appear to require more > mechanisms than others. (I have passed over xorxes' insistence on > bringing in person segments necessarily along with persons and his > contrarian refusal to have brodas along with broda kind in the > universe of a discussion). > > They are also terminologically unified in that both MB 's and my view > would hold that the maximal set of brodas in a given situation is > broda-kind in that situation, Not really... I'm currently understanding kinds as Chierchia does: they're actual atoms in our universe, and predications which involve only kinds are true in all worlds or none. > the gulf from xorxes is merely a matter the difference between things > among a kind and manifestations of a kind. For MB, this difference > requires particular quantifiers that xorxes does not need; for me, it > requires different ways that a bunch of things may satisfy a predicate > (which we need already for other cases). This now projects onto > questions about {zo'e}, which, insofar as it is anaphoric, usually > anaphorizes a {lo} expression, and, in another role (of at least > three), is used in the Lojban-internal definition of {lo}. Perhaps > coming to some agreement on this fundamental difference can get us > forwarder. >=20 >=20 > ----- Original Message ---- From: Jorge Llamb=EDas > To: lojban@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, > September 19, 2011 5:17:10 PM Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as > close-scope existentially quantified plural variable >=20 > On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 10:36 PM, Martin Bays wrote: > > > > Would you accept that "Lions are ruining my garden" is a reasonable > > possible translation of {lo cinfo cu ca daspo lo mi purdi}? >=20 > Yes. >=20 > > Would you agree with Chierchia (Ch98 p.364) that "Lions are ruining > > my garden" means that there exist some lions which are ruining my > > garden? >=20 > Only in the sense that "I am in my garden" means that there exists > some stage of me that is now in my garden. So yes, but not really. It > is a posible explanation of the meaning, but in terms of things that > were never mentioned. When I say "lions are ruining my garden" I don't > really mean to bring individual lion manifestations into the picture, > just as when I say "I am in my garden" I don't mean to bring stages of > me into the picture. >=20 > > If so - that's the kind of existential quantification which we don't > > see with {mi} or {ti}. {lo cinfo cu ca na daspa lo mi purdi} has to > > have as as a meaning that no lions are destroying my garden. >=20 > No, it doesn't have to bring individual lions into the picture. 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. >=20 > > Could it be that our only point of disagreement here is that you'd > > prefer to leave {lo cinfo} as a Kind, and have a later stage of > > processing do the conversion to (in this case) an existential, while > > I'm suggesting we skip the Kind stage? >=20 > 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.) >=20 > > Actually that can't quite be the only point of disagreement, as I'd > > want an existential or generic reading of {lo} to be allowed in > > cases when there's also a pure-Kind reading - e.g. "I don't like > > lions" vs "I don't like some lions" vs "I don't like generic lions", > > all meaning quite different things; if {lo cinfo} in {mi na nelci lo > > cinfo} returned a Kind, it seems we'd have no way of accessing the > > latter two meanings, since the first would take priority. >=20 > Yes, "I don't like lions" takes priority. It could also mean "I don't > like the lions" in a context where we already have some individual > lions in the domain of discourse. >=20 > > Let me make that a question: do you consider "there are some lions > > such that I don't like them" to be an interpretation of {mi na nelci > > lo cinfo}? If so, how do you obtain it? >=20 > That would have to be "su'o da poi cinfo zo'u mi na nelci da" or > equivalently "mi na nelci ro cinfo" or "mi nelci me'i cinfo" or "mi > nelci su'o cinfo na ku" or "su'o cinfo na se nelci mi". >=20 > 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@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this > group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den. >=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@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this > group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den. >=20 --pkBzO0lo80FoaZii Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk55Kt0ACgkQULC7OLX7LNaE5gCcDTwkrpqxbRirS2ZeuTZarBBF qwEAniRpQ3GFiChIJ3K5g1WcKXBBPRgv =HB5K -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --pkBzO0lo80FoaZii--