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Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}
On 5/20/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/20/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it does. The definitions were laid out in the first post of
> this thread (and then later I laid them out more extensively), and if
> we're not going to stick to them, we're going to have a hard time
> understanding each other.
This is what Alex wrote:
"For this discussion, I will use context specifically to refer to the
_spoken_ context into which the {all} is placed. This includes all of
the discourse prior to the {all}, the rest of the sentence after the
{all}, and possibly what the listener anticipates."
I would include the physical setting as part of the context too, and
any knowledge of the world that the participants have, but that's not
relevant here.
Context is anything that could aid you in determining what was meant
by an ambiguous description, so yes. It's just that "me" (I this one
speaker) is not ambiguous, and same for a word with a sticky tense
applied - it's not ambiguous.
> > thing is that in at least in those two cases the referent of {lo ro cribe} will
> > change because of things said in a different part of the discourse. So
>
> It does matter if the word "context" is ambiguous. What you *were*
> saying was "context (referents and concepts brought up or implied in
> the course of discussion) affects the definition of words". Now you
> seem to be saying "context (each word including cmavo previously used
> to do something) affect the definition of words". The former is false,
> the latter is true.
I never restricted context to referents and concepts brought up or implied
in the course of the discussion, although I do consider those as _part_ of
the context of an utterance.
In any case, we both seem to agree now that what you call "stickyness"
will have an influence on the interpretation of referents of an expression, and
I got the word from CLL. Lojban doesn't have restriction stickiness,
though it has tense stickiness (which is applied globally, I think).
You could think of restriction stickiness as {lo cribe} having "within
the X settlement" stuck upon it, and so every ensuing {lo cribe} has
{poi nenri la...} stuck to it, in addition to any other {poi}s. {lo
cribe} also has {poi cribe la grislis} stuck to it. This whole
stickiness thing seems now to me a bit like {da}, but with a nicer
label.
Another way of looking at the contract heading is that it says "Any
rules, guidelines, etc. stated by this contract apply only within the
GSA". This is like saying "when I make any assertions involving bears
outside of the X, I am not really making that assertion". Which seems
to be redefining ju'a in some strange sense.
Redefining the word bears to include wolves (or "bears" to mean "bears
in the settlement") is another way to handle it, though I don't really
like it. "Means X to me" should be used to describe what it actually
means to you, not what you want it to mean for purposes of discussion.
This subject deserves more contemplation that I've given it, but these
are ways in which the contract could be handled without having to
translate "all bears" into {lo ro cribe poi nenri la ...} every time
you encounter it. None of them needs context.
I would not support having {L_ ro cribe} definitely mean {L_ ro cribe
poi nenri la ...}, derived solely through context.
also that predicates used other than in the expression under consideration
will have an influence on the interpretation of the expression. Both of these
things are external to the expression, and I see no reason to say that they
are not part of the context, but whether we say that or not changes nothing.
They aren't part of the "context" that helps the listener disambiguate
non-exactness. They are part of the "context", which as you define it
means "the effects of words, even cmavo, that were said before".
> > those two at least are cases where our positions coincide. We can start
> > from there.
> >
> > Now, what exactly counts as a zasti-type relationship?
> >
> > ze'i lo ro cribe cu zasti
Oops, that should have been {me'i}, not {ze'i}. Sorry about the confusion.
{me'i} means "less than all" = "not all".
> > "Not all bears exist."
>
> ronai lo ro cribe cu zasti
{ro nai} is currently ungrammatical, though I think {nai} should be allowed
after any word.
I think I agree with you, since it sounds a bit odd. Is {rome'i lo ro
cribe cu zasti} proper then?
> "not all of the entire hypothetical bear-mega-set will exist"
>
> > mi pu viska lo pixra skina i lo ro cribe pe ri cu dasni lo mapku
> > "I saw a cartoon. All bears in it wore hats."
>
> This specific {pe ri} is what I would consider a zasti-type. I deduce
> from context that it means "...that existed in the perceptual-universe
> of the cartoon".
It only means "associated with it", the rest is your (certainly valid)
interpretation from the context. Compare with:
mi pu klama lo dalpanka i lo ro cribe pe ri cu dasni lo mapku
"I went to a zoo. All bears in it wore hats."
Same {pe ri}, but this time presumably not zasti-type. So zasti-typeness
is something that has to be figured out from context, right? Some words
will have it in some contexts but not in others?
Yes, zasti-typeness is figured out from context. {pe} is, after all,
highly context-based, and so are, usually, ti/ta/tu and friends. We
have ways to say "in India", and "in the year 1970", but let's say
that we have a work of fiction based in India, 1970, and we want to
assert things regarding that story. Like "Alice came to India in June"
- that's surely not true, because this Alice is fictional/imaginary,
and so never came to India. But in the book, she did! (Just like the
bears never wore any hats, but in the cartoon, they did.) And we
surely don't mean that imaginary-Alice came to India? Though perhaps
we mean imaginary Alice came to imaginary India. And imagined by who?
What if I wrote of two different imaginary Indias? I'd have to say
which of these perceptual universes I mean. And if I share this story
with you, don't you partake in this other perceptual universe with me?
So really the imaginer doesn't matter. But when writing a story we'd
have to say something like "Alice (an imaginary person) was on the
(imaginary) ship as it approached the (imaginary) dock." Understand
that I don't mean {xanri bloti}, I mean {bloti poi xanri la [Alice In
India]} (the boat imagined by the book titled). Anyway, we have to do
this, or we aren't being very logical, are we? Not that we have to be
logical if we don't want to, even in Lojban. I'm just presenting it as
something to think about.
Anyway, {pe ri} works well enough under the circumstances.
> > As for stickyness, consider these three situations:
> >
> > (1) A formal agreement such as
> > <http://www.grrb.nt.ca/pdf/wildlife/grizzly/Grizzly%20Bear%20Management%202002.pdf>
> > where {lo ro cribe poi se catra lo prenu} would be licensed
> > by the formal definitions at the beginning of the agreement.
> >
> > (2) A semi-formal situation where for example an instructor with a prepared
> > speech explains the agreement to a group of people. They may start their
> > talk by saying: "In what follows, when I say 'bear' I will mean the grizzly
> > bears at GSA" and so on.
>
> I'd like a restrictive sticky to exist in Lojban. Like if I say {lo
> cribe poiki dasni lo mapku}, from now on when I say {lo cribe} I mean
> that it's bears restricted to ones that wear hats. I think that it
> would be useful.
The current {ki} with its tag-like grammar won't do for that. You can always
do things like {ko'a goi lo cribe poi dasni lo mapku} and then use {ko'a}
which you have already fixed.
Yes, this seems like the proper way to do it.
Let me add a couple of variations to (2):
(2a) Instead of saying "In what follows, when I say 'bear'..." the instructor
opens with "I am going to speak to you about the grizzlies at GSA" or
something of that sort, so he makes no explicit reservation of the word "bear".
Would that change anything for the later interpretation of {lo ro cribe
poi se catra lo prenu}, which may come perhaps twenty minutes later?
If yes, does that mean that one is forced to keep in mind not just the sense
of what the instructor is saying, which is basically the same in both cases,
but also the exact wording used?
"I am going to speak to you about the grizzlies at GSA" implies "I am
going to speak to you about *only* the grizzlies at GSA", which seems
to be the same as "when I speak about bears, I mean only bears in
GSA". I don't really see a difference, it's like me saying "I define
bears as bears that are in GSA". It's not context, it's that you're
editing the language for the purposes of the contract. Which is
perfectly acceptable - we've edited the dual nature of "context" to
mean something singular, and I've edited my use of the word "all" to
mean "all (everything)".
(2b) One of the attendees at the conference arrives late so they miss the
instructor's warning that they will use 'bear' to reffer to grizzlies at GSA.
When the instructor mentions that "all bears killed by people must be
accounted for under the quota", however, the late arrivee has no trouble
figuring out that it doesn't include bears that were killed by people two
hundred years ago in another continent. I predict that the same would happen
Yes, the speaker can infer certain things, like that there's a mistake
somewhere, from context anyway, even with my{ro}. The late person can
ask what the instructor means by "all" - does he mean the entire
forest? and get an answer - no, just the GSA. I can assume that you
made a typo, and that you really mean ninmu and not nanmu. This
doesn't mean that it's ok for the speaker to exclude that statement at
the start of the lecture. He wouldn't be speaking the language
correctly if he did.
So looking at this from the perspective of the listener is probably
not the right way to do it. After all, the speaker knows what bears
he's referring to or making assertions about, and he knows that he
used the language to properly describe them, and that the language fit
his thoughts.
in English or in Lojban. Would you rather have a fluent Lojban speaker be
confused in that situation? (This situation is basically the same I faced
when reading this sentence for the first time, I only saw the single sentence
without knowing that it belonged to a formal agreement with definitions
at the beginning, and yet I understood immediately that they were not
talking about all bears ever. The very sense of the sentence itself made
that quite clear.)
This to me shows that humans are capable of recognizing and working
around mistakes in communication. This seems to be a way of saying
"well, it's ok if we don't handle this concept of language, because
the listener will in most cases get our point anyway".
> > (3) An informal situation: "You're new here, right? OK, then you have to know
> > this: all bears killed by people must be accounted for, no exceptions are
> > admitted".
>
> In this case I wouldn't use {ro}/"all": "...know this: bears killed by
> people...", or I'd probably say something like "all bears killed here
> must be accounted for", to which they may reply "disambiguate 'here'",
> to which I'd reply "lo Wasomething Settlement".
But the "all" is important here, as emphasized by the "no exceptions are
admitted". Indeed the original had some other type of emphasis, something
My blank inner assumes the most contextually sensible number of bears.
In this case, the most sensible referent is "all bears in this place
here" ("in this place here" being deduced from the preceding "you're
new here, right?"). It is informal speech, after all. If he wanted to
be a bit more precise, he'd speak less casually and provide the full
restriction.
like "all bears killed by people, including illegal killings, accidents, ..." or
something like that.
So disallowing the {all} in this situation I would consider problematic.
My May 19th message asked:
Show me how to say "nothing" (described above) via your method in a
way that isn't convoluted.
I would like you to address that. If you're still thinking, or have a
way, please let me know. If you have no way to do it, then please
consider the implications that that has on our discussion.