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

On 6/10/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > lu'o ro lo tadni cu sruri lo dinju

If your grammar says that an outer {ro} on a {lo} marks it for
distributivity, why is (1) exempt from this rule?


Because the presence of {lu'o} means {ro} is no longer the outermost
marker. The distributive/non-distributive marker marks a slot, and no
matter how many {lo}s and {loi}s and {lu'o}s and quantifiers are contained
inside the sumti expression, the one that determines whether the slot is
distributive or not is the outermost. An outermost quantifier is distributive,
an outermost mass-marker is non-distributive. It's that simple.

In addition to quantifiers, logical connectives are also distributive and
work just like quantifiers, and {joi} works like {loi} and {lu'o}. The neutral
connective, not marked for distributivity and which corresponds to {lo}
is {jo'u}. So if we have two people, Alice and Betty:

la .alis .e la betis = ro le re prenu
la .alis .a la betis = su'o le re prenu
la .alis .onai la betis = pa le re prenu
la .alis na.enai la betis = no le re prenu
la .alis na.anai la betis = su'epa le re prenu
la .alis .o la betis = ro ja no le re prenu

(The remaining logical connectives are not symmetric, and therefore don't
have a corresponding quantifier.)

la .alis joi la betis = lei re prenu
la .alis jo'u la betis = le re prenu


> {lo rokci joi la alis cu sruri le dinju}.
>
> But apparently under your current interpretation, from that it follows that
> {loi rokci cu sruri le dinju} and also that {lu'o la alis cu sruri le dinju}
> (= {lai alis cu sruri le dinju}?). But neither of those follow at all, the
> way I understand it.

As I've said, this isn't English, you don't need the same pragmatics
and verbatim translations.


I'm not talking about pragmatics here, I'm talking about what follows
logically from an expression. For all cases of ko'a and ko'e and broda,
independently of their meanings, under your interpretation you have
that from:

(1)  ko'a joi ko'e broda

you can deduce:

(2)  lu'o ko'a broda

Just from knowing that ko'a and ko'e do X together, you can deduce
that ko'a is part of a group that does X. There's no pragmatics
involved there. But for me (and also the way Lojban has always
been, as far as I can tell) {lu'o ko'a} is not "some group that has the
referents of {ko'a} as components, possibly among other components",
it means, in singularist terms, "a group that consists of the referents of
{ko'a}, no more and no less" or in pluralist terms it means that the
referents of {ko'a} do something together.


Now, I could say {lu'o la alis cu sruri lo dinju}, but usually I
wouldn't. I'd say {lo rokci joi la alis cu sruri lo dinju}. However,
the former would still be true - Alice is a part of the
surrounder/surroundment of the building.


Under your reinterpretation of {lu'o}, that's correct. Under the usual
interpretation, that's not correct. This is independent of whether
you take the singularist or the pluralist road. The singularist and
pluralist roads take you both to the same final place, but this new
spin that you want to put on {lu'o} changes it to something else.


I'd still like to have that explanation of distributivity that I've
been asking for.

1) {lu'o la tadni cu sruri lo dinju}
2) {loi tadni cu sruri lo dinju}
3) {la tadni cu sruri lo dinju}
4) {la tadni cu dasni lo mapku}

What is Alice's relationship to each relationship?


(I assume you mean {le} or {lo} rather than {la}.)

In all cases, Alice is one of the referents of the sumti that appears in x1.
There's no more to it than that. The answer to your question "If Alice and
Betty do something together, what am I saying that Alice is doing by
herself?" is "I'm not saying anything about Alice more than that she is
one of the two people doing something together."

mu'o mi'e xorxes