In a message dated 11/1/2001 6:57:51 AM Central Standard Time, arosta@uclan.ac.uk writes:
It was there in my original message. I know you read it, because you replied You did indeed, and I took "construal" as interpretation ( which is, indeed, what you called the earlier cases you cited and which -- insofar as I understood them -- they clearly were), that is attempts to say what "typical" or "the typical" meant. <I infer from this that you think of prototypes as blueprints. That is, the thing that you describe as a "prototype" is something that could also be described as a blueprint.> I don't know on what basis you make that inference. Blueprints are, of course, prototypes within the range of the theory, but nothing about emes & allos, types & tokens, or work & particular copy relatesclearly to blueprints -- several other prototype prototypes seem more obviously applicable. <I'm getting this rare but pleasant warm feeling of having been understood by you.... Particularly the last sentence.> Gee, I wish I felt that I did understand you (not to take away a warm fuzzy), for I still don't know what kind of prototype theory you are after (except taht it is different from the one we already have -- quite unrecognized as such -- in Lojban). <#5. Does this mean that prototypes should replace typicals as the referents #of {lo'e} expressions? Not obviously. I think this needs to be unpicked: A. Do prototypes merit gadri? B. Do typicals merit gadri? C. What do lo'e/le'e mean?> I think unpacking is a good idea. Somewhere before A and B, though we probably need to talk a bit about the role of gadri and what it takes to "merit" them. Still, assuming for now that this is some function of frequency or centrality or that it has metaphysical import (is an individual), let us slog on. <Obviously I say Yes to A. As for B, I'm all in favour of being ableto talk about the average chicagoan and her 7.1 sexual partners, but before accepting that there should be gadri for this purpose, I would like to see how the distinction between what John called "typical properties of broda" versus "properties of the typical broda" is expressed.> Yes, you say yes to A; but how do you justify that "Yes"? As you know, I don't think there is much (if any -- this needs some tickling, since John managed to make a point with the distinction) difference between thetwo and recognize that not making an apparent reference to an individual might make the whole typical-talk clearer. On the other hand, as noted, the same might well be said for prototype-talk, at least in some contexts. <Finally, as for C, I think it would be to the benefit of the language if lo'e/le'e expressed prototypes (categorial individuals, myopic singulars), but it's not something we can sensibly argue about, and experimental cmavo loi'e and lei'e should keep happy whoever is on the losing end of any argument about C.> And I, of course, see this as making not too good matters worse, since I take it as insisting on the odd individuals, who have yet to be explained(and so are capable of anything at all, ad hoc, to solve every problem whatsoever -- and thus solve nothing). <Something that is ordinarily conceptualized as an individual and expressed as a sumti can be reconceptualized as a category and expressed as a selbri by means of {me}. Now, how to we take something that is ordinarily conceptualized as a category and expressed as a selbri and reconceptualize it as an individual and express it as a sumti? The usual criterion for deciding whether something is ordinarily conceptualized and expressed as an individual or as a category is whether there is only one X or whether there are many X. The reconceptualization then involves seeing only one X instead of many (for lo'e), and seeking many X instead of just one (for {me}).> The obvious answer (assuming there is a point to the question) is to make an expressions that begins with {le}, {lo} or {la} and refers to what you have in mind, those are the usual marks of usual individuals. But as I note and you have gone to some length to note, these don't work very well for even ordinary individuals. The more abstract {loi} and {lo'i} seem to work better, at least sometimes getting uniqueness, though not obviously the right sort of thing. Maybe this is another job for {tu'o}. How did prototype chat move from {loi}, where it lived for a couple decades, to {lo'e}? All of this chat, of course, depends upon a certain reading of Lojban -- an English reading and thus a largely Neo-Platonic reading (more or less taking Plato and Aristotle to be saying basically the same thing, from different points of view). Is this reading fair to Lojban (accurate for Lojban)? We are constatnly noticing things that are perfectly natural in English but that don't work in Lojban: singular/plural and count/mass are currently running around this thread. Lojban has a different grammar from English so we should expect it to have a different metaphysics(if we are Whorfians) or Lojban is metaphysically neutral so it should be equally accepting of all metaphysics (within some reason? -- if we are Brownians). Maybe Lojban already is prototype based: this would account for some oddities (from the English point of view). In that case {ti gerku} just means "Mr. Dog (at the highest level -- Just Dog Its Own Self) versions there" and {levi gerku cu bunre} (the exact function of{cu} is somehat obscured here) means "Mr. Dog overlaps Mr. Brown there" Note that singular/plural IS irrelevant and so is count/mass (may consequentially). It turns out that most familiar metaphysics are prototype theories and so, given one reading of a language, we can convert it into any of the others in fairly uniform ways. The trick is trying to talk about two theories at once, because the fundamentlas of one theory do not -- of course --fit naturally into the other. On the other hand, anything that can be done in one theory can be done in the other -- and at about the same level of difficulty (or ease). As Harry Hoijer used to say when Whorfianism go to rife in his class on it, "Any way you slice it, it's still baloney." Now, what is it that Mr Prototype theory is supposed to do and how is it supposed to do it? Great, now we can translate that into item&property and that into Lojban as we understand it and, poof!, we have what we need. (Or we can do Mr. Prototype Lojban and get there directly). |