Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:55 AM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> * Wednesday, 2011-09-21 at 19:08 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
>
>> >>     ro klesi be lo gerku cu gerku
>
>> The problem with saying it is false is that if "lo blabi gerku
>> cu klesi lo gerku" is true, and "lo blabi gerku cu gerku" is also
>> true, it's hard to say why at least "su'o klesi be lo gerku cu gerku"
>> would not be true.
>
> But we already have the same kind of weirdness with plurals:
> lo gerku remei cu remei .i je lo gerku remei cu gerku .i je ku'i ro
> remei na ku gerku remei

.i su'o boi re mei ja'a gerku re mei .i mu'a lo gunma be lo re gerku
be'o noi re mei cu gerku re mei

> Generally: you can't quantify over plurals (assuming we agree to the
> extent I'm under the impression we do on how plurals work); not being
> able to quantify kinds is a similar kind of restriction.

I do think we agree that Lojban quantifiers are singular (you could
quantify over plurals with plural quantifiers, which Lojban apparently
doesn't have).

And I agree that a plural constant cannot be a witness for the
singular existential quantifier.

So you would be saying that "lo pa klesi be lo gerku" is to be treated
as plural?


>> It could. So in your system "lo du'u ko'a ckaji lo ka broda na nibli
>> lo du'u ko'a broda" is true, right?
>
> Depends what you mean... for any predicate broda, I would want that to
> be false. But {se tuple re da} is not just a predicate in the above uses
> - it introduces an existential, and (part of) the question is what scope
> that existential has. Stuffing it inside a {lo ka} prevents it from
> scoping over the {lo remna}.

For me "lo remna" is a constant, so there is no scoping over it. What about:

lo remna zo'u re da zo'u da tuple ry
"As for humans, there are two things that be-leg them."

Would that be enough to keep your "lo remna" outside the scope of "re"?

> But wait, I was missing something obvious.
>
> You can still use {lo}:
> {ro da poi na'e xanto se danlu zo'u lo xanto cu bramau lo tumla danlu be da}.

Sure, that works too. Most predicates don't come with a built-in
subkind place though:

  lo smoka cu cmamau ro drata taxfu

But you could appeal to fi'o klesi:

  ro da poi na'e smoka klesi lo taxfu zo'u lo smoka cu cmamau lo taxfu
be fi'o klesi da

Would you agree that "lo se danlu cu klesi lo danlu"?


>> At this point
>> we seem to have different results for at least some cases.
>
> You mean the question of whether a pure-kind predication can block an
> existential or generic reading?

(I was thinking of the issue of what things can or cannot be values of
singular variables.)

> This does seem a fairly minor issue. If we could agree that {lo} is
> ambiguous between those three things with the property case taking
> precedence when it makes sense, I'd be happy.

I prefer the Carlson/Chierchia analysis where it is not ambiguous, but
since we end up getting the same results, that one does seem to be a
minor issue.

> (well, not wholly happy until I understood how the generic predication
> case works, and how to unambiguously make generic predications... but
> that's another issue)
>
> This precedence issue aside, and the kind-quantification issue also
> aside, are there any sentences for which your understanding of {lo}
> gives meanings different from those given by the ambiguity-based
> approach?

I don't know enough to answer that. So far the one major difference
seems to be the quantification over subkinds cases.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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