In a message dated 10/29/2001 8:23:57 AM Central Standard Time, arosta@uclan.ac.uk writes:
in Lojban a sequence Technically not; every sentence must contain a bridi tail. But such a string could be a fragment. <I'm talking about current Loglan, or at least my desultory reading of it.> Even then the sumti-observative seems to ahve been rejected as too unclear (i.e., how to tell it from a fragment or the beginning of a longer -- though slowly emitted -- sentence ("...derry.") <So anyway, it seems the rule for Lojban is that a zo'e x1 cannot be elided.> No, observatives are possible (actual, even). It just is that therole of such elided {zo'e} is restricted to objects at the center of one'sobservation. <What le/lo have to do with observatives is that the sentence {lo gerku} could mean "Lo! A dog", while {le gerku} could mean "Lo! The dog".> Well, it is not a sentence, and I suspect a bit of subconscious punningto get to this reading (it was surely present when the idea was first presented -- so far as I know -- in '76 or so). Oddly, the object of observation is always {le} by definition, so the pun fails. <No. Jorge's usage was intended to be canonical/defining, replacing the meaning that has to do with typicality.> Yes, that mistake, too; even xorxes can't set up a new canon for a fixed term. <, the whole #point of {tu'a} is to prevent the quantifier on -- or one derived from-- the #sumti from rising to the upper level, so of course the quantifier goeson the #{le nu ... co'e} that {tu'a} indicates. Where has this been doubted? I don't remember this ever having been the whole or even the partial point of tu'a. Tu'a marks so-called sumti-raising, and I don't recall the quantification either having been settled or much discussed. My memory may be unreliable, though.> Well, I claim that MY memory is non-veridical, so I won't dispute on what has or has not been said. Somethings are so obvious as not to needmentioning even here (until the mention is required, of course). Theonly logically interesting feature of subject raising (and, indeed, almostthe only linguistically interesting one, aside from cooccurrence restrictions) is that it gives a surface structure (in English and most languages --but NOT in Lojban) that appears to allow quantifications that are in fact illegitimate and the point of reconstructing the invisible clause is to explain why the quantification is illegitimate. <It's a good exception, but you can't escape it being an exception, given the rule that sumti quantified in situ are interpreted as being quantified in the prenex of the localmost syntactic bridi.> I can and do. First, as you know, I do not believe there is a rule of the superficial and erratic kind that you seem to be appealing to here, from which a raised subject is an exception. Secondly, in the real rule of which yours is a parody (and, but for the erratic element, in yours too), the sumti in {tu'a sumti} does not occur in the bridi in which {tu'a sumti} occurs. Thirdly, that sumti is bound in the bridi in whichit does occur. <Come on, you chide others for saying "Lojban can't say X". Just make the appropriate lujvo.> I didn't say it couldn't be done; I just said that we have lost a natural way of doing it somewhere along the line. As for making a lujvo, people dislike mine as much as my translations and a lujvo does not seem theappropriate way to go here anyhow. <#Well, it will fail -- at least to be useful -- if it cannot be given some #meaningful content. Historically, it has been used as a magic wand to cover #cases that could not be made to fit otherwise you're talking about {lo'e}, I take it. Or prototype theory?> Prototype theory.(this version of {lo'e} a fortiori). <The main answer to all of this is that lo'e and its implementation of prototype theory's categorial individual (= 'prototype') makes available an alternative ontology. Users who find that ontology useful can use it; those who don't needn't. All pretty Lojbanic. To answer your "Is it a blueprint or a member of the class or a way of talking about the class fuzzily", those are indeed answers given by weak forms of prototype theory, but the strong form is best understood as saying that either there are no categories, only individuals, or that everything isa category. Either way, the traditional member-of relation is replaced bythe version-of relation.> Still lacking is any explanation of what this might conceivably mean that is different from either bad statistics or worse Platonism. I suppose bad Platonism is a possible ontoology, but it doesn't help here, because, as noted, the prototype has very few properties in common with the versions and so fails to do its job. Alternate ontologies are welcome, buttey ought not be brought in to solve a problem they in fact make worse. <I think it isn't what I would think of as Platonism. For example I can see touch and smell the pc prototype, so prototypes aren't inherently abstract (-- I understand Platonic categories to be inherently abstract).> Whoa! You can (or could in certain situations) see, touch and smell ME, but I am not a me prototype in any interesting sense. I suppose, we are back now to st-worms and temporal (or maybe even some kindsof spatial) cross sections. That works for an individual, but not for a natural kind (let alone a {le} group). This is not coming across as an ontology now, so much as a verbal formula that covers several ontologies that inherently have nothing to do with one another. That judgment may turn out to be wrong (see Lesniewski's mereology), but it sure needs a lot of work to make it plausible. <#-- in which case the question of connection -- which may not be #important in the present sense -- remains unsolved, I don't know what that question is.> What is the relation between the prototype and the version by virtue ofwhich the version is a version of the prototype, rather than something else. <#and of course means that #the individual has properties that none of its versions has and conversely). I think this is held (by prototype theorists) to not be the case. I would favour going along with that view in the interpretation of {lo'e broda}, and taking {lo'e/tu'o du'u ce'u broda} to be the Platonic essence.> Yes, but HOW would they do it? I take {lo'e [or whatever] du'u ce'u broda} to be a property, and thus not the right category to be an Ideal or a prototype or... <I don't want to debate the ontology itself. I just want to argue that it is important enough that Lojban should have a way of expressing it, and furthermore that it's useful if it is expressed by a gadri..> I am sure we can come of with an _expression_ meaning "is a/the prototypeof" to express this ontology, I'm trying to find out just how this helps explain a gadri. Byron on Coleridge: "explaining metaphysics to the nation, how I wish he'd explain his explanation." I have a pretty clear idea what {lo'e cinfo} means, I have rather less of what a prototypical categoryof lion is. <Apparently KOhA gets quantified, not just LE, so (without my knowing the formal grammar) it seems plausible that the grammar allow "li" and "me'o" to be quantified.> Oh, it probably does, but I am not sure that a default was specified (presumably {pa}, but I wouldn't be surprised at anything). <However, my ulterior question is: What should one do when the grammar requires a gadri but, as with "li" and "me'o", the sumti attaches always to unique objects? Answers so far are "tu'o" and "lo'e".> I agree, but, on the other hand, since it won't in the end make a difference, take whatever you like (well, {lo'i} is clearly a mistake as is any number but 1). I like {tu'o} for its in-your-face nose-thumbing and dislike {lo'e} because it is obscure and possibbly wrong. <Those examples, on certain construals, take us into an imaginary realm where there is only one customer and only one postman, and situations in other realms where there are many customers and many postmen are versions of the imaginary one. To me this is not an unnatural mode of thought, and it is desirable that Lojban be able to express it relatively effortlessly.> Well, I don't like it to be too easy to move into imaginary realms -- Icertainly want a least one major flag up when I move. It does seem to me that Lojban is more than adequately equpped -- though not yet very well trained -- for making such moves easily and visibly. I am less sureabout versions of an imaginary postman, however. |