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

On 6/8/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:


My take on it is that
{cmima} concerns things seen more seperately - a squadron of planes,
family of bears, [...]. {gunma} would concern things that look like
they're quite close together - a pencil, a book, a car, a body.
{pagbu} would be the word to use when you don't care to detail if you
see them dispersed or visibly combined.


If your take on {gunma} is that the x2 is distributive, then you cannot
expand {loi tadni} as {lo gunma be lo tadni}. Consider this case:

The building is surrounded by students and professors together. Then:

  loi tadni cu sruri le dinju
  Students surround the building.

is false.

  lo gunma be lo tadni cu sruri le dinju
  A group that has students as components surrounds the building.

would be true.

  da poi sruri le dinju cu gunma lo tadni
  Something which surrounds the building has students as components.

would also be true.

So you must either take the x2 of gunma to be non-distributive, or you
need a different expansion for {loi tadni}.



But it doesn't really matter to me which exact interpretations are
given: all of these have the same format - there's one aggregate, and
component parts of it.


{pagbu} and {cmima} are both like that, yes. If A and B and C are parts of D,
then A by itself is a part of D, and B by itself is a part of D, and C by itself
is a part of D. If A and B and C are members of D, then A by itself is a
member of D, and B by itself is a member of D, and C by itself is a member
of D. That's what we mean by saying that the x1 of {pagbu} and the x1 of
{cmima} are distributive.

But {se gunma] is different: if A and B and C conform D, then A by itself
does not conform D, B by itself does not conform D and C by itself does
not conform D. Only together, jointly, do A, B and C conform D.

{gunma} means "x1 consists of x2".
{se gunma} means "x1 conform x2".



I'd disagree with that. It's a "mass/team/aggregate/whole, together
composed of components...". "Consists" is a special term, it has very
specific pragmatics attached to it.


{gunma} does mean "consists of". But even if you think {gunma} means
something else, the predicate that you need to make your expansion
of {loi} is one that means "x1 consists of x2", not one that means
"x1 has component x2"

mu'o mi'e xorxes