RE: [jboske] The singularisations

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

Nick:
> So where do we stand?
> 
> Where we stand is, we have getting close to a dozen singularisations 
> in Lojban, each subtly different. We have had conflations between 
> them, which I regard as pernicious, because they foment confusion. 
> (John has been responsible for some, Jorge for others.) We do not 
> want 10 singularisations in Lojban, and if we're stuck with them, we 
> want ways of neutralising them by default. This may not always be 
> possible 

Unacknowledged conflations foment confusion. Acknowledged conflations
can build consensus and bring us closer to a feasible solution.

> Before I go on, reporting back from Carlson's paper on English 
> Generic plurals. (I'm going through a "best of" Formal Semantics 
> anthology; it makes sense for me to stick with them, since these are 
> arguably the papers that have determined how formal linguists 
> approach these things.) Carlson doesn't have an ontology. He doesn't 
> need to, he's a linguist not a philosopher. But the way he addressed 
> generics was by positing a three-way hierarchy (and I'm making this 
> more coherent than he did). We have kinds of things; then, individual 
> things; then, avatars of things. Kinds of things are neither space 
> nor time delimited. Individuals are space delimited but not time 
> delimited. Avatars are both space and time delimited. Generic claims 
> are claims made of the kind, and are comparable to claims made of 
> named individuals. (John walks; Dogs run.) Specific claims are made 
> of avatars (John is running = The John of right now is walking; Dogs 
> are barking = The Dogs of right here and right now are barking) 

Is 'avatar' your term or Carlson's? I thought he used 'stage'.
Anyway, FWIW, I don't find his hierarchy very helpful and I
particularly reject the delimitation by time and space criteria.
I can distinguish Nick-seen-from-the-front from Nick-seen-from-
behind (not time delimited), or Nick-in-a-good-mood from Nick-in-a-bad-
mood (discontinuously distributed in time).

I prefer to reduce the three-way classification to two: kind
and individual. Individuals are (or can be seen as) avatars (or
instances or members) of kinds. So when I talk about "avatars
of Nick", I am conceptualizing Nick as a kind. Uniques conceptualize
kinds as individuals.

> So for these singularisations, we'd need to be able to say whether 
> they are kinds, individuals, or avatars. Or that the classes are 
> inapplicable. And we'll really know where we stand when we work out 
> test phrases that distinguish between the various singularisations, 
> in terms of what can or cannot be claimed of one or the other 
> 
> Anyway, we have as candidate singularisations:
> 
> Set of x
> 
> Mass of x
> 
> Group of x
> 
> Mode of x (my Typical)
> 
> Stereotype of x
> 
> Prototype of x
> 
> Any-x
> 
> The any-x (I want a doctor, any doctor --- Jorge's lo'e) is really 
> just a trick of scoping, though. If you're looking for a doctor, 
> Lojban does already solve that for you by introducing a lambda 
> abstraction: {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce}. If we could say {mi nitcu 
> leka ce'u mikce} and get away with it, and the same for all gismu, 
> we'd be OK. And we wouldn't be asking whether this doctor is the same 
> as {loi mikce} (which it mostly is) or {lo'e mikce} (whatever lo'e 
> is) 

You omit Unique, which has been endorsed by me, xorxes and xod.

I argued for conflating Mode and Prototype as Average. That is,
Average, a meaning to be assigned to a gadri, blurs the Mode/Prototype
distinction.

Any-x has not been seriously proposed. I did assign something like
it to lo'ei/le'ei, but that definition was really "xorxes's meaning,
which I don't understand". So Any-x should be discounted.

I support making the distinction between Mass and Group.

> It seems that the prototype is how you recognise doctordom, if you go 
> looking with the prototype doctor in mind, you'll find an instance 
> (an individual of the kind.) But this doctor isn't really singulated, 
> is it? You can look for two doctors quite sensibly: {mi sisku leka 
> ce'uxi1 jo'u ce'uxi2 mikce} (assuming that ce'uxi1 != ce'uxi2). When 
> you look for Doctor that's been through the Universal Grinder, the 
> notion of two doctors is irrelevant 
> 
> (The Universal Grinder is a favoured trick of formal linguists, to 
> convert individuals into masses: "there was doctor all over the 
> road." If mass is distinct from group --- and I strongly believe it 
> is --- then this Doctor is mass.)
> 
> That's why I still prefer something like {jaika}, {se ka}, {poi'i}, 
> or whatever else is on offer. 

{da poi'i ke'a broda} = {da broda}. {Poi'i} has no meaning. It is
just a syntactic device.

I think what you want is plain {ka}: that is the intension.

> I don't buy that this doctor I'm 
> looking for is singularised the way Prototypes and Masses are. And I 
> also don't buy that looking for x such that x is a doctor is the same 
> as walking around with a prototype in your head, and seeing if the 
> things you come across are in Wittgenstein family relationship with 
> it. That may be what we're doing psychologically; but if {mi sisku 
> leka ce'u mikce} is legitimate, and we want a means of expressing 
> that more generally, that's not what what {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce} 
> is saying. {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce} is saying you're walking around 
> with a lambda expression, seeing what fits it and what doesn't, 
> yes-no. When you need something, you also need x such that x fits the 
> slot, yes-no. You're not looking for a chimera. And prototypes are 
> mental constructs and chimeras. And I believe conflating the Any-X 
> (what I call this lambda thing) and the other singularisations is a 
> pernicious act; even if logically it works (which I doubt), it is too 
> confusing to countenance 

We should forget about Any-x. It is a red herring. It just happens
that an incidental property of Unique is that it nullifies opacity.

As for generalizing the sisku pattern, you already know I dislike it,
and think the djica pattern is the right one. But this should really
go into another thread. In this thread it is merely a distraction.

> So: yes to being able to express the any-x succinctly. No to 
> conflating it with the other singularisations on the market, and the 
> prototype in particular. No to conflating it with the mass of x, 
> although very frequently they will end up equivalent in context. 
> Maybe to coming up with a novel gadri for it; I think it would be 
> better for Lojban if we end up with something like {se ka} or {poi'i} 
> instead, though, because I want to be able to see the ce'u 

The logical way to get Any-x is to use an existential quantifier
within a subordinate bridi: I want to own any book = mi djica
loi nu mi ponse lo cukta.

But as I say, this belongs to another thread, and this any-x stuff
should be forgotten about in this discussion.

> Of masses and groups: when Yoko marries John, I would claim she's 
> marrying the mass of Beatles, but not the group the Beatles. 

"Yoko Ono married Beatle" -- yes, that works for me. So I agree
with you.

> Whereas 
> when John writes Strawberry Fields, the Beatls does write it. The 
> difference, surely, is the realisation of corporate identity. The 
> Mass of the Beatles is this sludge os Beatledom, which has no 
> intellectual control over when to regard itself as The Beatles and 
> when not. The group The Beatles is a corporate, rational entity: 
> people decide whether they're writing a song as a Beatle or as a solo 
> artist 

Sure. I have no problem distinguishing masses from groups. It's 
just that all the talk of piano carrying, etc., has made me think
that loi/lei do groups, not masses, and that 'masses' was a misnomer.

> Most instances of such group/mass singularisations will not be 
> rational: bits of sugar doesn't get a say in whether they solo 
> artists or part of the group. Likewise, indeed, if I claim {loi remna 
> cu mabru}, individual people don't het the choice of being considered 
> mammals as solo artists or as part of the collective. So if this is 
> the distinction between groups and masses, the default goes to masses 

I don't understand this para.

> I retract my Typical lo'e, since it's clearly not what even Bob and 
> John wanted. I retract my understanding of squinting: squinting means 
> that the singularisation is derived from the individuals, by effacing 
> their differences, but clearly a prototype is a definition of the 
> class, which you come into the game already equipped with. You're not 
> deriving the prototype from the indivduals, you're classifying the 
> individuals on the basis of the prototype 

I agree. 

> I think the claims that {lo'e cipni} is a universal human concept, 
> not a culture-specific construct, are very risky. But this is a 
> popular train of thought, and people should be allowed to say it. 
> Those who ideologically object to it (I'm convinced xod would, and I 
> think I will) can simply refuse to use it 

Who is making these claims? And which meaning does {lo'e} have
here?

> I hate this. But is this-all helping?

Does my reply help?

--And.