From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRCo2I_zBBoEzA3aNQ@googlegroups.com Sun Sep 04 14:22:59 2011 Received: from mail-vx0-f189.google.com ([209.85.220.189]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1R0K9Y-0000Da-8k; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:59 -0700 Received: by vxh7 with SMTP id 7sf2691606vxh.16 for ; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:49 -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; bh=1hMgn4sBUmZcBJMF0k8Qx6WGMLCZWm8LHOhAEYhdPSM=; b=42fAb9LXMQuy8GaA1C7RQtIkFkIcplN0o0OSGyn27C5d80xKGb+M5n32WmXrG9eRVR hWQPucigj3+Im25r6WybGfpIo6kWOPA3iM6ImLZ4H9yQK0jlUgk5fqOBYc/tpHw9Dpow IvnZWSZJ2AKML9D0bOf+QanBHCjppJNP0wxNE= Received: by 10.220.108.196 with SMTP id g4mr510680vcp.49.1315171368292; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:48 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.52.168.137 with SMTP id zw9ls574452vdb.2.gmail; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.25.72 with SMTP id a8mr1384671vdg.19.1315171367484; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.25.72 with SMTP id a8mr1384670vdg.19.1315171367475; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-vw0-f53.google.com (mail-vw0-f53.google.com [209.85.212.53]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id f5si2973572vdu.1.2011.09.04.14.22.47 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.212.53 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.212.53; Received: by vws13 with SMTP id 13so3956950vws.26 for ; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.175.230 with SMTP id cd6mr1139148vdc.251.1315171367292; Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.52.163.133 with HTTP; Sun, 4 Sep 2011 14:22:47 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20110904195334.GB30555@gonzales> References: <20110824154151.GA3105@gonzales> <20110825090633.GC13699@gonzales> <20110825231909.GG13699@gonzales> <20110826105057.GH13699@gonzales> <20110902015636.GC3748@gonzales> <20110904195334.GB30555@gonzales> Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2011 18:22:47 -0300 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] xorlo and masses 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 209.85.212.53 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 On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Martin Bays wrote: > > Fragments of it are easy enough to treat - in particular, a sizable > fragment translates directly to usual first-order predicate logic. Yes, and while the collective/distributive issue is not so easy to treat in the usual (singular) first-order predicate logic, the issue of generics is much simpler in that respect, as long as we keep the domain of discourse restricted to what is relevant. > Pre-xorlo, {lo} was part of that fragment. I'd like to understand what > modifications to the semantics are required to handle xor{lo}. Pre-xorlo "lo" was just a synonym of "su'o". There's not much point in having two words for the same quantifier. xorlo "lo" is not a quantifier, rather what it does is create a referring expression out of a predicate, and the only requirement is that the referent(s) of that expression satisfy that predicate. But what those referrents are will change from context to context. In some contexts the referrents of "lo gerku" will be some particular dog or dogs, in some other context it will be something like the single referrent of the English "dogs". That has no effect on first-order predicate logic. From the point of view of first-order predicate logic, all we have in "lo gerku" is a constant. > But what I meant was that you seemed to be upsetting the very > foundations of a model-theoretic formal semantics - that we can judge > truthhood of statements against a fixed model (fixed at least > throughout a sentence, whether or not throughout the whole discourse). > > I hope this isn't necessary. I don't think I'm doing that, at least not with respect to this issue of generics. >> >> And this works because, as Carlson points out, bare plurals are never >> >> actually ambiguous as to what reading they should be given. The >> >> predicate normally selects for which reading is the one called for, >> >> and when it doesn't it's because the predicate itself is ambiguous, as >> >> can be shown with the same predicate acting on non-bare plural >> >> arguments. >> > >> > Yes, but you don't want this to translate directly to Lojban, do you? >> >> I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "this" here. > > The ambiguity being in the predicate rather than the sumti. The type of ambiguous predicates I was thinking about were things like Carlson's example "... ate figs" (he used some other food item, but I don't recall what now) which has the two possible readings for bare plural subjects in English, but it also has the two readings for an ordinary subject like "John", so it doesn't make sense to attribute the ambiguity to the bare plural, unless you want to say that "John" is also ambiguous in the relevant sense. In Lojban the disambiguation could be something like "...pu ta'e citka lo figre" vs. "... pu co'i citka lo figre". Plain "citka lo figre" would probably have to remain ambiguous between at least those two. >> My Lojban translation for "poets write some poems, but most poems are >> written by non-poets" might be something like: "lo pemfi'i cu finti >> su'o pemci .i ku'i so'e pemci cu se finti lo na'e pemfi'i" > > Right. So that wouldn't work with lo giving 'the typical', nor with it > giving some individuals as a constant - so this kind of Kind really is > something new. And its semantics are only getting more and more alien to > me as you give more examples... What I'm saying is that it's (similar to) the usual semantics of the English bare plural, at least as analysed by Carlson. In our domain of dioscourse we have one element (poets), another element (non-poets), and some indefinite number of other elements, each of which is a poem, and we claim that poets write some poems, and non-poets write most poems. Nothing deeper than that. The problem (if it's a problem) is when you try to connect this with a different domain of discourse which contains many people each of which is either a poet or a non-poet. But that's a different domain of discourse, not the one we need to interpret this sentence. The relationship that holds between an individual like "poets" and the many individuals each of which is a poet, when they occur in the same domain of discourse, does have its complications. But it's not like we are deviating from first-order predicate logic when we consider the simpler domain where "poets" has a single referent, who happens to write some but not most poems. > For a while, I thought your generics might be something like elements in > an elementary extension, i.e. that adding them doesn't change the truth > value of any sentence (or maybe: of any sentence which is short enough > and doesn't use any too high numbers (so we can add generics to large > finite sets)). No, we don't add generics to sets. When we have a generic, it will typically be the only member of "its set". > But now it seems you would want that {ro pemci cu se finti lo finti}. So > {da finti ro pemci} becomes true on adding this generic. Yes, as long as we don't shift to a domain of discourse where we have more than the generic "authors". If you are going to go down that road, it would make more sense to start with "ro pemci cu se finti su'o finti", which of course does not license "su'o finti cu finti ro pemci".. >> > Or if you don't believe in {lo'e}, make the question: could {lo gerku cu >> > cmalu gi'e xagji} be translated as "dogs are small and some dogs are >> > hungry"? >> >> I don't think so, where would the "some" have come from? It would have >> to be one of the options in: "(The) dog(s) is/are/(was/were/...) small >> and hungry". > > Probably I should have said "dogs are small and the dogs are hungry". > This isn't in your list of possibilities. Just to check - was that > deliberate? Yes, the x1 of "cmalu" and the x1 of "xagji" in "lo gerku cu cmalu gi'e xagji" has to be the same, and in "dogs are small and the dogs are hungry" you are changing subjects. "Dogs are small and they are hungry" would work. > Do you mean that there are *two ways* in which {lo plise cu farlu} could > be analysed as saying that some (particular) apples are falling - the > first being where {lo plise} is read as referring to some apples and > {farlu} as a distributive predicate, and the second being where {lo > plise} is read as a generic, and {farlu} is read as applying to some > stages of this generic? "lo plise cu farlu" could mean "apples fall" or "apples are falling", yes (among other things). One way of disambiguating would be "lo plise cu ta'e farlu" vs "lo plise cu ca'o farlu", i.e. by making the predicate, rather than its argument, more explicit. > Or do you want to combine these two into one? Perhaps with lo *always* > returning a generic? I think that woldn't work in general, but for out-of-the-blue sentences without any context, it seems that the generic is the most natural way to go. mu'o mi'e xorxes -- 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=en.