RE: [jboske] Nick on propositionalism &c. (was: RE: Digest Number 134

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 03:58 PM 1/5/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > >If you drink a glass of water, then there is none left once you
> > >have drunk it. What qualifies as 'none left' is determined by
> > >ordinary criteria of relevance
> >
> > Correct, but LOGIC is orthogonal to pragmatics. When one is being
> > hyperlogical, one is ignoring pragmatics. All means ALL, not almost
> > all.
>
> This is a warped notion of hyperlogicality. All means all, not almost
> all -- that is a matter of logic/semantics. But whether "all of"
> can describe something short of "every molecule of" is a matter of
> pragmatics. This sort of confused inability to distinguish logic
> and pragmatics has hampered Lojban for too long and led to silly
> notions like the idea that logical precision adds complexity and
> hence should add verbosity.

Backwards. Logical precision is overly simplistic and what people want to 
say seldom matches what is easy to express logically (hence what happens 
when we try to explicate "only" or "just"). Therefore we add short forms 
for what people want to say as abbreviations for logical formulations, 
leaving the pure logical forms there (though seldom used in 
conversation). Thus, people do NOT say "all" unless they really mean 
logical "all", without a single exception.

> > This is why I introduced da'a (which BTW I think should be used
> > instead of me'iro, which flashed by my screen in the last couple of 
> days in
> > some context).
>
> The general opinion, which I share, is that the standard {pa} default
> is useful for {da'a} (e.g. giving 'penultimate'), while {ro} is the
> most sensible default for {me'i}.

It is not what is a "sensible" default that matters. "Default" refers to 
the value that pragmatically will occur most often when the number is used 
elliptically. In some cases (as the su'o in su'olo) we can specify a 
default that encompasses the whole field of plausible values (I haven't 
heard a plausible context where "lo" would be interpreted "nolo"), so 
saying the default is "su'o helps convey the meaning and usage of "lo".

The only time when da'a should be assumed to have the default da'apa is 
when there is no context that suggests a different value (which may or may 
not be often). "Default" means "first guess" not "actual meaning".

> > People including logician considered a superlative to mean
> > "more than ro" and this is logically impossible since nothing is more 
> broda
> > than itself. Pragmatics (and all natural language) understands this, but
> > it is logically wrong
>
> I don't know what you mean. It sounds like nonsense. What are the
> grounds for analysing superlatives as "more than ro"?

I'd have to dig up the reference the hard way. This was ancient history 
before Lojban went Internet, though there might be some earlier discussion.

> > Invoking Whorf, if I say that noda poi jelca is in the drum, then that
> > really means NOda, and lighting a match should be safe
>
> I can't see any grounds for invoking Whorf here; it seems to have
> nothing to do with Whorf. Instead, you should invoke Grice and do
> a bit of inferncing before lighting the match.

The Whorf reference is explained better here:
http://www.xrefer.com/entry/444443

If "empty" means noda poi jelca cu nenru, then tossing a match into an 
empty gas can will not cause an explosion. But in fact an empty gas can 
will still cause an explosion, so therefore it isn't really 
empty. Pragmatics does NOT work in English in that situation - it has to 
rely on people knowing enough context and common sense that the word 
"empty" means something other than what it really means.

> > Predicate logic demands that any "predicate-specific properties" be 
> handled
> > by the place structures, so as to be transparent at the meta level that 
> the
> > logic and grammar are operating. An operation on a predicate should work
> > the same way regardless of what the predicate means
>
> Again, I have no idea what you mean.

"lo" is an operator on broda that produces a phrase "lo broda". The 
meaning of "lo broda" should be determined from "broda" in the same way for 
all values of broda. It is not different if broda is nounlike, verblike, 
countable, always singular.


> > > > >Your reasoning is based on (a) deliberately failing to distinguish
> > > > >the mass from part of the mass, and (b) taking {pi ro} to mean
> > > > >"every part of", which we have already agreed to be error
> > > >
> > > > Why? If it doesn't mean every, then use pida'a
> > >
> > >Does pimu mean "1 part in every 2 of", or "a half of"?
> >
> > In base ten it means ".5 of" which is either of those (I'm not sure I see
> > the difference)
>
> "pa lo re si'e" would be a continuous half, such as is found in a
> tin of apricot halves.

Huh? "pa lo re si'e means nothing to me, since I have trouble 
contemplating a si'e greater than 1.
pa lo re boi pimusi'e would be "one of the two half-portions".

> Reading "pimu" as "1 part in every 2 (same-sized)
> parts of" makes me find piPA more useful, so I don't want to argue
> against it.

That is implicit in the mathematical definition of fractions. .5 (decimal) 
means 5 parts in every 10.

> What are the default quantifiers for li, lo'i, le'i, lu, zo?

Not a meaningful question for some of these, as there is no grammatical 
form "mu li tu'o". For le'i and lo'i it is a meaningful question, which is 
determined by examining all potential usages of the form "PA le'i broda" to 
see which one occurs most often, and hence is the one that one can assume 
in trying to quantify the sumti (which logicians seem to want to do, which 
is why the default quantifier tends to turn into a logic discussion).

We look at some possible values and see what they mean
no lo'i broda
su'o lo'i broda
pa lo'i broda
da'a lo'i broda
ro lo'i broda
pisu'o lo'i broda
piro lo'i broda

We look at an example sentence using no quantifier:

lo'i broda se cmima vo da
to see what it means, and we find that the outer quantifier must default to 
either "ro" or "piro". Since I've never actually seen an 
outside-quantifier usage on lo'i, I can't say which of these holds more 
meaning, which makes the decision rather arbitrary.

If John is right and we can use set descriptions for collections, the the 
answer may be different. I would be inclined to use "piro" on lo'i and ro 
on le'i, but if something other than this was said in CLL, I wouldn't 
likely argue.

The value for the inner quantifier depends on how you want statements about 
different forms of the empty set to be interpreted - thus probably either 
su'o or su'ono or ro.

A faster-than-light spaceship is not the same as a purple unicorn, so the 
quantifier on "lo" must exclude the empty set. The set of 
faster-than-light spaceships is logically the same as the set of purple 
unicorns, but I am not sure if it is pragmatically the same.

lojbab

--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org