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

[Seth Gordon <sethg@ropine.com>]

Maxim Katcharov wrote:
> On 5/11/06, Seth Gordon <sethg@ropine.com> wrote:
> 
>> I have skimmed some of this discussion, so pardon me if I missed an
>> important detail, but....
>>
>> If I understand Maxim's argument, he wants {lo ro cribe} to refer to
>> every bear that exists or may exist, unbounded by any context
>> established by the conversation.  By this definition, {lo ro cribe}
> 
> 
> Indeed. This would allow one to define the context exactly, instead of
> leaving it up to the listener to guess it.

I don't think it's ever possible to "define the context exactly"; every
act of communication has a context, and there's no way to eliminate the
requirement for a shared understanding of what that context is.  No
matter how much explicit information you add to your message, there will
always be something else lurking in the background.  (Whatever you say
explicitly is no longer the context of the message, it's part of the
message itself.)

Fortunately, in most communication between human beings, speakers are
capable of knowing what information they can safely leave out and
audiences are capable of either recognizing the context that they need
to apply, or asking for clarification when they are confused.

Even answering "2 + 2 = ?" requires a shared understanding that we are
dealing with the set of integers rather than, say, the set of integers
modulo 3.

>> rather have the freedom to have a conversation in Lojban in the museum,
>> say {lo ro cribe cu morsi}, and be understood as saying that all the
>> bears *in this museum* are dead.
>>
> 
> My suggestion is that {lo cribe cu morsi} mean exactly that (blank
> inner quantifier).

One of the things I like about Lojban grammar is that (to borrow a maxim
from a completely different language) "you don't pay for what you don't
use"--if, for example, your audience will be able to infer the time of
an event that you are describing, then you can leave out explicit tense
markers in your statements.  The decision to make {lo cribe cu morsi}
carry no information about the number of bears involved seems to be in
that spirit, and I see no reason to prefer a different default.