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Re: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le
On 5/6/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/6/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> What kind of each are you talking about? "each bear" is ambiguous, not
> generic, I would think.
Vague maybe, rather than ambiguous?
Perhaps an example with something less natural-kindish than bears
could show what I mean more clearly. For example:
ro lo tadni poi zvati ro lo nunctu ba snada
Each student that attends every course will pass.
There is no specific group of students involved there, and I may not
be thinking of any specific set of courses either. This may be for
example a rule in some school. Maybe no student has even enroled
yet.
It is possible that we agree here. I had said:
{ro lo ro cribe} = each of all bears
{ro lo cribe} = each of all the bears (i.e. each of the bears I'm talking about)
My {ro lo tadni poi zvati ro lo nunctu ba snada} would (roughly) be
"each of students (i.e. each of the students I'm talking about, and
the ones I'm talking about are attenders of...) ..."
Perhaps not relevant, but I think that the best way to say that would
be either {[each student that attends is identical to some of the
passing students (in the future)]}, or perhaps {[being an all-class
attender causes you to be successful (in the future)]}.
> {ci lo ro cribe cu citka lo ro jbari pe mi} - "of all bears, there are
> exactly three such that each of them eats all my berries."
>
> When you say "exactly three", I don't think that you mean /only/ three
> ({po'o}).
I do mean at least three and at most three. In other words, of all bears
there have to be three and no more than three such that each eats all
my berries.
{po'o} is different however. For example, if in addition to exactly
three bears, there was an elephant that also ate all my berries,
{po'o} would be wrong, but "exactly three bears" would still be right.
Yes, you're correct. The proper thing to do in that case would have
been to use su'oci (or perhaps even {ro lo ci [such that see me]}?).
> And if not that, then "exactly" seems unneccisary. Is it?
> And so, what is the difference between:
>
> {ro lo ci cribe}
> {ci lo ro cribe}
In the first case, I'm going to say something about three bears, that each
of them is or does something. In the second case, I'm going to say
something about all bears, that exactly three of them are or do something.
You indicate that you say something about what the inner qualifier is.
How is it (in the second example) that you say something about all
bears? In {ro lo tadni poi zvati ro lo nunctu ba snada} you use
similar forms, but {ba snada} applied to the outer quantifier, {RO lo
tadni...}. You were saying something about all those students, and not
"those such that...". If you had said {ci lo tadni poi...} (perhaps
you're making a prediction: only three will pass), you'd be saying
something not about that undefined number of students, but some exact
three. So what is it that you mean by "say something about [inner
quantifier]"?.
> Consider that it may be:
>
> [unspecific subset of] lo [a specific 'set' of bears that I'm thinking
> of] ("set" may not be the same as the lojbanic set.)
Perhaps we are using "specific" differently. All I require of the referent
of {lo ci cribe} is that it consist of three bears.
Seems right, yes.
> > I don't think {lo ro bear} is any more precise than "all bears" in English.
>
> Yes, "all bears" is what I meant, I just wanted to be explicit that I
> meant "all bears", and not "all of some bears that I have in mind" or
> anything like that.
An example:
xu do pu viska lo ro cribe ca lo nu do vitke le dalpanka
Did you see all bears when you visited the zoo?
I don't have any specific bears in mind there, because I don't even know
how many bears the zoo has. I do intend to ask about all the bears at
the zoo, but all I know about them is that they are all the bears at the
zoo. I am not using the description to get at some referents that I have
otherwise in mind. There is only the description that generates the referents
for me. I am certainly not asking about all bears that exist in the universe.
({xu (do) pu viska (lo ro cribe) (ca lo nu do vitke le dalpanka)} -
did I group the sumti properly?)
In the above, wouldn't you mean {...ro lo cribe...}?
Perhaps this: You had offered "I think that {le} indeed serves to
preclude the 'any' or 'in general' interpretation that {lo} does not
preclude". Point being that {le} had something to do with
specificness, and that {lo} allowed for something general. What is
this general thing? Some examples have been given, with focus on "3
bears eat berries" vs. "bears eat berries", where the latter was
intended to illustrate generalness. I don't think that it did, since
it could only, in my mind at least, mean one of two things: "the
typical bear eats berries", and "all bears eat berries", both of which
are adequately handled.
What is the distinction between {lo} and {le} if it is not
'specificness'? And if it is 'specificness', could you illustrate it
with a new example, or show how my interpretation of previous examples
fails?