Re: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 5/7/06, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > Let me summarize where thing lie at the
> moment
> > and where various people are trying to make
> them
> > go.  I omit Maxim's, partly because I don't
> think
> > they have really settled down yet and partly
> > because I am not at all sure I understand
> where
> > they are at the moment.
> 
> (Indeed they aren't.) I'll illustrate my
> position, as you asked it, by
> commenting on or (dis)agreeing with various
> given background
> statements. You'll have to bear with me (pun
> perhaps intentional) in
> my responses below, as I'm less familiar (with
> some aspects of it).
> 
> > Officially:
> > {le} and {lo} are distinguished by
> specificity.
> > In addition (as a consequence of
> inspecificity,
> > so it can be taken as pointing somewhere),
> what
> > is referred by {lo broda} to must be a broda.
> On
> > the other hand, what is referred to by {le
> broda}
> > does not have to be a broda (though its being
> a
> > broda is the best reason for calling it one).
> > This is a consequence of specificity: we have
> the
> > referent picked out already and the
> description
> > merely gives it a tag -- one that will help
> > others to find the right thing as well (the
> 
> So specificity is (was?) as follows:
> 
> I have something in mind. It might be all
> bears, it might be a group
> of three bears that were ahead of three other
> bears as they were
> chasing us, it might be all bears that chase,
> and (herein lies your
> specificity) it might be the three chaser-type
> bears that specifically
> chased us, or just (some) three chaser-type
> bears. The former is
> specific, the latter is non specific. Is this
> illustrative?

Not very clearly.  Stick to simple examples until
we get the fundamentals out of the way.  Suppose
I say {lo cribe cu citka le jbari}. When I go and
check, it does not matter which bears it is that
are eating the berries, the statement is true if
some bears are eating (have eaten, etc.) the
berries.  On the other hand, if I say {le cribe
cu citka le jbari}, the statement would be false
even if some bears are eating the berries BUT
they are not the ones I meant.  I know in advance
what bears are eating berries if the statement is
true. With {lo} I have to look and find out which
ones it is, but any will do (including ones I had
in mind).
In Logic, what corresponds to {le} is a name or a
free term or a variable bound by a quantifier
outside the given context.  That is, the
referent(s) is (are) fixed for the duration (two
occurrences of {le cribe} in the same context
refer to the same thing, of {lo cribe} not so
certainly).  As a test, does a name make sense
here.  If not, definitely use {lo}, if yes, then
{le} is prabably OK.

> I disagree with this concept of specificity. If
> I wanted to say "three
> chaser type bears" (non-specific, just that
> some three), I'd say {ci
> lo (ro) broda poi [restricted to
> also-chasers]}.

I am unsure what you mean that you disagree.  If
you mean that this is not what separates {le}
from {lo}, then you are simply wrong (and
slightly rude for contradicting people who are
trying to help you understand).  If you mean that
it is a dumb distinction or that it can be
covered without using {le}/{lo}, then, assuming
you understand what the distinction is, we can
have a discussion (but note that the specificity
of {le} is from one of the oldest strata of the
language, going back to 1960 or so, so -- unless
you can show how to reproduce it using material
already at hand, you are unlikely to win this
point).  As for your example, {ci lo (ro) cribe}
(and the {ro} really is unnecessary -- as is the
{lo} for that matter), does just say "three
bears" unspecifically and adding a {poi} clause
just says "three bears of a certain sort" also
unspecifically.  And this something about {le} or
specificity how? Piling on new properties does
not make thing more specific, only more narrowly
defined and at any level of definition one can be
specific (a delimited group of things so defined)
or general.  Even if the definition is so narrow
that only one thing satisfies it.


> In all cases (regarding the inner quantifier),
> the referent is picked
> out. You could mean 10 bears, 20 bears, the
> referent is there. You
> need not even know the number of bears that you
> mean - maybe you mean
> incidentally all, maybe you mean somewhere
> above one, maybe you mean
> somewhere around 10000 - you just don't know
> how to accurately
> quantify them, or maybe you don't want to. The
> best you /can/ do is
> restrict them ("I mean that are also chasers"),
> or restrict them
> absolutely with an inner {ro} - "yes I mean
> exactly 'they are bears
> and they are chasers', in which case you can't
> say 'well no, I really
> meant the ones that are climbers (excluding
> non-climbers), and are
> bears, and are chasers' ". Basically, ("bears
> that are chasers, all of
> them, and so that's exactly what I mean/have in
> mind").

I don't see the point of this now.  I am also
unsure why making the inner quantifier {ro}
restricts things (it seems to leave it as open as
possible).  In general I think (though there is
admittedly some dispute about this) that internal
quantifiers just say how many are referents of
the description: if you don't know or don't care
(or don't want to say), you leave it out.  But
putting it in does not make the description more
specific; at best it makes it more precise. Nor
does having in mind in the sense of "thinking
about": I can have bears that chase us in mind
without being specific -- any bear that chses us
will do.

> Adding that inner {ro} means that you're
> committing to your
> restrictions, and no other restrictions need
> apply. If you think that
> maybe you havn't restricted it well enough
> ("well, I mean bears that
> were chasers but perhaps this could be
> restricted further.."), keep it
> at (the default) {su'o}, don't use {ro}.

I still don't understand what internal
quantifiers have to do with specificity -- or
maybe what this discussion is meant to be about.
 
> '{ro} is a commiter' applies to /both/ {lo}
> /and/ {le}. With {le},
> however, you could backpedal and say that your
> definition of bear (or
> chaser) meant that they were climbers also
> ('bears in my mind were
> inherently climbers, no bears existed that
> weren't'), but you'd
> probably just say that you goofed up (on your
> own definition) and
> should have restricted it better or not have
> used {ro} - just as you'd
> do if you messed up on your {lo} restrictions.

{ro} is not a committer in any sense that I can
see; as an internal quantifier it just means that
you are referring to all (the relevant ones) that
satisfy the description.  The description may or
may not be the one you really want to use, but
that is a separate issue.  I suppose that there
is a sense in which "all of them" is specific,
since there is nothing that satisfies the
description that does not count, but I would
still say you can use {lo} with it as well as
{le}, probably because I doubt that you can take
in all of something as individuals (maybe a bit
shakey here).

> Something very important, and perhaps the
> source of the initial
> definition's error: The complete purpose of
> {ro} is that it finalizes
> your restrictions. "Those three bears that
> chased us (were brown)" is
> *not* translated using a {ci}. It's translated
> using a {ro}. {lo ro
> cribe poi jersi mi'o [were brown]}. But in fact
> the complete
> translation would be (perhaps) {ci lo ro cribe
> cu jersi mi'o
> [identical with] ro lo ci cribe cu bunre}. So
> it seems that English
> has a nice way of wrapping an assertion
> regarding exactly how many
> there were right into a sentence. Note the
> difference between:

> "The three bears that chased us (were brown)"
> "Those three bears that chased us (were brown)"

I am sure there is a difference (but it is mighty
small) but it does not seem to be related to the
factors you have suggested  (which, admittedly, I
am not yet quite clear about.  I think my problem
is that I am not sure just what you are out to
demonstrate, largely because my mind is stuck on
specificity and cardinality and you seem to be
somewhere else).

> The first implies that there may have been
> other chasing bears ("but I
> mean just three, and don't want to bother
> restricting"), the second
> basically contains an assertion regarding how
> many bears there were.
> The first is translated to {lo ci cribe poi
> jersi mi'o [were brown]}.
> The translation to the second is above
> (involving identity).

Well, the translation isn't grammatical and there
is a general warning about using identities ever
and particularly between description.  But all
that aside, the distinction betweeen the English
sentences (assuming there is one) doesn't seem to
be anything like what you propose.  "The three
bears that chased us" would generally be taken to
mean that there were (exactly) three bears that
chased us.  If there were more but we only wanted
to talk about three of them, we would probably
say "three of the bears that chased us".  I would
distinguish these (though some features here are
not very Lojbanic) as {le ci cribe...} and {ci le
cribe...} "Those three bears" might be used just
like the first of these or, after we have
restricted our interest, like the second
occurrence of "three of the bears" when we meant
the same three.

> All of this is why I considered the zoo example
> provided incorrect,
> and should serve to illustrate exactly how I'm
> approaching
> quantifiers.

So, we are talking about quantifiers; I got that
mixed up with specificity somehow.  When you say
the example is incorrect, what exactly do you
mean.  At best, I would take this to mean that
you do not understand the example the way that
xorxes does, in which case, you need to say how
you do understand it and what makes you think it
goes that way.  Again a fair warning: arguing
with xorxes about what a Lojban sentence means is
usually a losing battle.  But this case seems
particularly doomed since you are starting by
saying some strange things about quantifiers,
things that even I can see are wrong.
 
> Perhaps an aside: Because an assertion
> regarding how many there were
> seems useful, I suggest that ro+# would be the
> equivalent of "those
> three", or "them three-all bears" (suppose a
> rural dialect) - that is,
> you could now pack an assertion of exactly how
> many there were such
> that fit... into your basic statement.

That is what internal quantifiers do (and, in a
different way, external ones too). So we don't
need another way of doing it, especially not a
confusing and verbose one like this suggestion.

 This is
> thought to be a bad
> idea in the case of {lo rosoci cribe} "there
> are things, and there are
> 91 such that are bears", (er, I may have
> screwed that up) and it is a
> bad idea for something so vaguely restricted,
> but it would capture the
> translation of "those three bears..."
> perfectly. But this suggestion
> can probably wait until this is all sorted out.

As noted, it doesn't seem to have anything to do
with "those three bears" and, of course, it (a
description) doesn't mean anything like the the
quoted sentence that follows.
 
> > This is a consequence of specificity: we have
> the
> > referent picked out already and the
> description
> > merely gives it a tag -- one that will help
> > others to find the right thing as well (the
> > correct tag will sometimes -- maybe even
> often --
> > interfere with finding the right thing:
> calling
> > Juno a man rather than a woman, while correct
> > would not lead to Juno, since others
> identified
> > her(him) as a woman).
> 
> As I hope I demonstrated above, you always have
> a referent picked out.
> But yes, this is exactly what I consider the
> function of {le}.

Not quite sure what "this" means but the function
of {le} is to refer to specified objects, which
function allows for inaccurate descriptions to
work.  You have not demonstrated that the speaker
always has a referent picked out "Students who
get As pass" not only does not have a referents
picked out, there may not be any referents at
all.
 
> > The implicit quantifiers on {le} are {su'o}
> > internally and {ro} externally.  The implicit
> > quantifiers on {lo} are just the reverse.  So
> an
> > explicit internal quantifier on {lo} gives
> the
> > number of all the whatevers in the world,
> while
> 
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