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Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}
On 6/10/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
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.
No doubt it's a simple rule, but the question is if it's the proper
way to describe how we communicate.
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
joi: in a mass with non-logical connective: mixed conjunction; "and"
meaning "mixed together", forming a mass
pagbu: x1 is a part/component/piece/portion/segment of x2 [where x2 is
a whole/mass]; x2 is partly x1
la .alis jo'u la betis = le re prenu
jo'u: in common with; from CLL: A and B considered jointly
gunma: x1 is a mass/team/aggregate/whole, together composed of
components x2, considered jointly
Are you offering these definitions as suggestions, or as explanations
of how it really is?
> > {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
Right
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.
Right, there are no pragmatics involved in my interpretation.
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.
"Consists" is handled by {po'o}. Aside from pragmatics ("well, the
speaker wouldn't say 'the students surrounded the building' if it was
students /and/ professors, so it must be just students"), there is no
reason to assume that {lu'o la alis cu sruri lo dinju} would be false,
or rather, to assign that po'o.
> 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.
So you would disagree that
loi tadni cu sruri lo dinju
expands to
[da poi sruri lo dinju] cu gunma [lo tadni]
which you had previously described as a legitimate interpretation,
yes? I agree, this is somewhat aside from the discussion. If it were
true, then the expansion would be
[da poi sruri lo dinju] cu gunma [[lo tadni] po'o]
which would be sensible, and if it was the case, {lu'o la alis cu
sruri lo dinju} would be false.
However, I can't see any reason to introduce po'o. (Lack of a good
reason should be enough to default to the simple version.) It doesn't
harm anything to omit po'o - you could always use the expanded form,
or a different shortcut. However, in other less simple cases, the full
enumeration of components may prove infeasible (is a sports team
really just the players that are on it? Is a human just those
molecules? etc.), so the introduction of po'o is harmful there.
> 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.
There is more to it. {loi tadni cu sruri lo skori} and {ro lo tadni cu
sruri lo skori} are different in some way, yes? I'm asking you to
explain the difference. Does saying "Alice is one of the referents of
both lo tadni" contribute /at all/ to an explanation of the
/difference/? No. So there is more to explain - more to it.
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."
If I didn't know any English, and asked you to explain "dog" to me,
would you do it in a way that relies on the English words "hound" or
"canine"? No, you wouldn't.
The meaning of the word "together" is the thing under dispute. If
you're going to offer an explanation, don't make it circular - I have
no idea what you mean by "together", the meaning of your "together" is
what you're trying to explain - so why would you use your definition
of the word? The only way that I understand "together" is "as parts of
a group" (or "reciprocally"/"simultaneously", which are not
applicable).
Here is, again, my explanation for as a mass and individually, respectively:
Alice is part of X
X surrounds the building
Alice wears a hat
Is the difference not apparent there?
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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