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Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

On 5/22/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>      mi pu klama le zarci gi'e te vecnu lo mapku
>      I went to the market and bought hats.
>
>      mi pu klama le zarci gi'e te vecnu lo ro mapku
>      I went to the market and bought all hats.
>

That's a very clear example. It seems that a blank inner for you means
"the most contextually sensible set", and an inner ro means "all of
the most contextually sensible set". I would think that this can be
said just as well with:

... L_ mapku - bought hats
... su'o L_ mapku - bought some hats
... ro L_ mapku - bought all hats

or do those have different meanings to you?


With the example as it stands it wouldn't make a significant difference,
but if you add a nondistributive predicate (say "which filled my bag") then
outer {ro} won't work, because it is not true that each of the hats filled
the bag.



> For "of all hypothetical things, concepts, - everything - that can ever
> be concieved by humans or otherwise, none of those things exist within
> the box" you would use a similarly longwinded expression. It would be

It's a simple concept that requires a long winded and incomplete
expression because no other is available.


Right.


> a waste to have some short phrase like {no da} reserved for something
> so precise, given that it is rarely if ever needed.

The fact that it's rarely if ever *used* is no indication that it's
rarely if ever *needed*. People may avoid these long and ultimately
incomplete descriptions, and use ambiguous terms instead. Perhaps they
mean to say it constantly, but these ambiguous terms are always
counted for them saying the other thing.


I don't think language works like that. When there is a need to express
something, people develop a way to express it, and frequent concepts
acquire short expressions to go with them (Lojban's Zipf's law).

But suppose you are right. All you have to do is use these words as you
propose. If it turns out to be as useful as you expect, you will be imitated.
I doubt any amount of theoretical argument will be convincing, but show
by example how useful it can be and no doubt it, or something along the
lines of it will be adopted.


> > How do you need context
> > to determine what "me" refers to? You don't. Though you do need the
> > *setting*, which is something very different.

"Me" in the sense that we're talking about refers to the
consciousness/identity of a person. "Me" can, yes, refer to "my eyes",
or "my body". In some cases, it can even refer to a clone of your
identity: "you're me, and I'm you". But we're talking about "me" as in
"I", are we not?


I don't know, you brought it up. I thought you were saying that no context
was necessary to figure out the referent of "me".

mu'o mi'e xorxes