From lojban+bncCOTEtqyUDhDX74DzBBoENLCsuA@googlegroups.com Thu Sep 01 18:56:50 2011 Received: from mail-pz0-f56.google.com ([209.85.210.56]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1QzIzv-0003Jo-NC; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:50 -0700 Received: by pzk33 with SMTP id 33sf5204081pzk.1 for ; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:41 -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=LBIQyv/Ykmo+VFGcKlluA02pSOLq7mxg1IXa7lIt9CA=; b=6pUE6mRgNW6Lzm8ojHXR8ezMoj1syxeJXkrKgIrR2koAWDieFjsuqlyaroRg12w8Gz 82BIxFEohcM04AhD4Qk4LJgf+fVrknXi9+/3oE6vHKYpela/cejnHcO8JRIuPe7qyJpu tQd28sdmo0Y/DuZx7Ll7hm0hPJ82DoLd+lJZ0= Received: by 10.68.6.97 with SMTP id z1mr213245pbz.73.1314928599999; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:39 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.68.33.193 with SMTP id t1ls9341148pbi.0.gmail; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.23.39 with SMTP id j7mr477366pbf.30.1314928597953; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.68.23.39 with SMTP id j7mr477365pbf.30.1314928597944; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (mx.sdf.org. [192.94.73.19]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id j4si1091670pbi.2.2011.09.01.18.56.37 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:56:37 -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 p821ubhG017845 for ; Fri, 2 Sep 2011 01:56:37 GMT Received: from martin by gonzales.homelinux.org with local (Exim 4.75) (envelope-from ) id 1QzIzk-0003e1-V7 for lojban@googlegroups.com; Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:56:36 -0400 Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 21:56:36 -0400 From: Martin Bays To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] xorlo and masses Message-ID: <20110902015636.GC3748@gonzales> References: <20110823230437.GC19213@gonzales> <20110824154151.GA3105@gonzales> <20110825090633.GC13699@gonzales> <20110825231909.GG13699@gonzales> <20110826105057.GH13699@gonzales> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-PGP-Key: http://mbays.freeshell.org/pubkey.asc X-PGP-KeyId: B5FB2CD6 X-cunselcu'a-valsi: mlana 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: , --Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable * Friday, 2011-08-26 at 19:15 -0300 - Jorge Llamb=EDas : > On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Martin Bays wrote: > > > > But wouldn't you agree that the domain of discourse should be mostly > > static? >=20 > I think it needs to be mostly dynamic. (Don't ask me for a full theory > of dynamic how, but I think the static assumption only works for > interpreting small chunks of language at a time.) Oh. But then is a model-theoretic formal semantics of any use at all? > > So we can't solve the problem of {ci da panzi mi} by just > > declaring that such a statement indicates that the Kind {lo'e panzi mi} > > probably isn't in the domain of discourse, because it wouldn't be at all > > remarkable for {lo'e panzi mi} to be explicitly talked about in a nearby > > or even the same sentence. >=20 > With a strictly fixed domain that would be hard to do, I agree. >=20 >=20 > >> I'm not sure it's such a good idea to think of kinds as being made of > >> something. > > > > Well... they come from unary predicates (no?), and sometimes those are > > true of only one thing. e.g. {lo'e me mi}, maybe. >=20 > Unless you want to say things like "I am no longer who I was ten years > ago", or "I am not the same person when I'm on vacation". Sometimes > you can do that just with tense, or you can say it's metaphorical, but > a metaphorical interpretation is still an interpretation. I would have thought that even if "the person I am when on vacation" made it into the domain of discourse, it wouldn't satisfy {me mi}. But that's just a question of what {mi} means. > >> >> and "poets write some poems, but most poems are written by non-poet= s"? > >> > > >> > I don't think 'poets' is a generic there, any more than 'non-poets' = is. > >> > >> Carlson would disagree. (Or rather,I think he would say that bare > >> plurals are always the same thing, I'm not sure he would call it a > >> generic.) > > > > Hmm. I think he would call 'poets' and 'non-poets' indefinite plurals, > > and analyse them as existentially quantified > > instances/realisations/stages of the corresponding Kinds (as in section > > 4.2 of the paper you reffed). >=20 > Read again the paragraph beginning "But here I seem to be arguing the > contrary of what I have argued for at length a bit earlier [...] the > remainder of this work is devoted to the resolution of this > contradictory state of affairs." The resolution is that the > existential quantifier ends up being buried within the predicate, not > in the bare plural term. The predicate "... writes some poems" becomes > something like "/xEy[R(x,y)&writes-some-poems(y)", while "poets" > translates as "/PP(p)". >=20 > 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? E.g. 'poets' couldn't be {lo'e pemfinti} in the above, could it? 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"? > >> but for "lo broda lo brodi cu > >> brodu", just the same as for any other "ko'a ko'e broda". I just don't > >> think that "lo broda" fixes by itself any level of abstraction. > > > > So you think we should just consider it as another part of the ineffable > > and irreducible semantics of brodu? >=20 > It doesn't have to be ineffable and irreducible, but yes, I think it > makes more sense to shift the focus of the analysis there. If it isn't irreducible, could you indicate at all how you'd do that analysis? > > Meanwhile, one last translation question: do you have a way of rendering > > "humans have two legs" in your lojban, using the Kind 'humans' but > > without using anything like the {ckaji lo ka...} trick? >=20 > I would say: "lo remna cu se tuple re da". You... would? Even though you'd have it being equivalent to {re da zo'u lo remna cu tuple da}? What are the two solutions for {da}? Martin --Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.17 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk5gN9QACgkQULC7OLX7LNZecwCfbBLq4jvOTMlnC5obZKi+uXtw r/0AoM6hwkB538i/ImxNo36YfXBBn7yX =UbzP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Fig2xvG2VGoz8o/s--