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Re: [jboske] carving the lo'e debate into shape (was: RE: My last will and testament on lo'e


la and cusku di'e

# There are 3 concurrent issues:
# 1. What does {lo'ei} (= {lo'e}-as-used-by-xorxes) mean?
# 2. What should {lo'e} mean?
# 3. How do we make logically-robust generic statements (about the
# typical X)?
# These issues need to be kept separate, conceptually even if not in
# different threads.

Yes! Thank you for clearing that up.

Sticking to (3), let's get the easy case out of the way: attributing
typical properties, such as living in Africa. For this, we can say,
"Every typical lion lives in Africa", "Every typical unicorn is white".
Okay, "typical lion" needs to be firmed up, but that's part of the
definition of the relevant brivla (fadni, or whatever), and I think
we're entitled to take it for granted that such a firming up can be
provided. The appropriate brivla can be chosen to express the mean
average broda and the modal average broda.


Right. So, in a given situation, we can sort all lions
into typical and atypical (maybe with some borderline
cases). We see a certain lion and we can say: "that lion
is typical", or "that lion is atypical", (or "that lion
is sort-of typical" in doubtful cases). So there is
nothing particularly difficult about this notion of
typical.

ro cinfo poi fadni le ka ce'u xabju makau kei lo'i cifno
cu xabju le friko
Every lion which is typical among lions in where it lives,
lives in Africa.

(Hopefully we won't waste {lo'e} on this. It is not the
kind of thing we say all the time such that it requires
a special gadri.)

This leaves the other class of cases, "I like chocolate", "I tame
the lion", "This depicts a snake", "I need a box", etc. To me, these
seem much more heterogeneous, but I tentatively suggest that they
fall into two classes.

Class A: {lo} within the scope of an implicit element.
[...] 
mi tinbygau lo'ei cinfo
mi nitcu lo'ei tanxe

Class B. The ones that don't fall under Class A. My feeling is that
what is going on with these is that we are referring to the type
rather than the tokens. Not the set, but the exemplar. It is as
if we abstract away from the differences among the tokens to end
up with a single instance.
[...] 
This is the meaning I intend for {loi'e} and {lei'e} to have:
mi nelci loi'e cakla
ti pixra loi'e since


What would you understand by {mi nitcu loi'e tanxe}?
Isn't needing the exemplar box just what we mean by
needing a box? I really can't see any significant difference
between your {loi'e} and my {lo'ei}. I would not hesitate
to use {ta pixra lo'ei since}, i.e. {ta kairpixra tu'o ka
ce'u since}. Can you think of contrasting cases where one
gives true and the other false?

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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