Re: [lojban-beginners] ci lo gerku vs lo ci gerku

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:17 AM, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, xorlo has no default quantifier. But then does "lo ci gerku"
> really mean "*all three* of the dogs that we are talking about"?

"lo ci gerku" can be used to refer to anything that fits the x1 of
gerku and whose number is three:

lo ci gerku = zo'e noi ke'a gerku gi'e klani li ci

> According to xorlo, {lo} isn't supposed to have any default
> quantifier, including "at least one". "How to use xorlo" translates it
> as "something(s) or other to do with broda".

"How to use xorlo" says some odd things, so don't take it too
seriously. I don't see how "lo gerku" could be used to refer to a
dog's collar for example, which would fit the "something or other to
do with dogs". It seems to me that "lo gerku" can only be used, and
everybody only uses it, to refer to dogs.

The outer quantifier changes nothing about what "lo ci gerku" refers
to, it only says how many of the referents satisfy some selbri:

no lo ci gerku cu blabi
pa lo ci gerku cu blabi
re lo ci gerku cu blabi
ro lo ci gerku cu blabi
su'o lo ci gerku cu blabi
me'i lo ci gerku cu blabi

In all of those cases, we are still referring to three dogs. The outer
quantifier says how many of them are white, but the reference is still
to three dogs.

Now someone will ask what "lo ci gerku cu blabi" means without an
outer quantifier. My answer is that in this case it is *probably*
saying that "ro lo ci gerku cu blabi", but not because of some rule of
grammar or logic but because of how things work in the world with
respect to dogs being white. We usually say of three dogs that they
are white only if each of them is white, but this is not a rule that
applies to all things and all predicates. We don't require each dog to
be white all over either, we may allow for their tongues not being
white and we still say that the dogs are white, we may allow for some
non-white spots on their skin as long as they are not too noticeable
and still say that the dogs are white, and so on. This has to do about
how we determine whether something is white, and more specifically how
dogs are white.

There is no PA that fits this formula for all broda and all brode in
all contexts:

   lo broda cu brode => PA lo broda cu brode

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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