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

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

{pi PA lo brodacu brode} doesn't seem to me to be an abuse; it merely signifies 
that a subbunch the size of .PA of lo broda brodes.  It's a bit ickier with a 
proper name or a clear atomic individual (well. not so atomic anymore) but not 
really improper or even difficult to understand.  I still don't see what the 
{su'o} adds -- unless you always write the decimal place 0.
Ah!  thew {su'o} allowa that there might be more than one such fragment, but so 
does just {pi za'u}, as far as I can see. So, I suppose that {za'u} is a 
particular quantifier of a sort -- the sort that says how big the new bunch is.  
Would {su'o pa} take members one at a time, where, as a plural quantifier, 
{su'o} might take larger sub bunches?
Well, "worlds" is a slippery term (and the obvious replacement "situation" is no 
better).  And its referent tends to get mixed up with domains or universes of 
discourse, which bunches of things we drawn from wherever we will to talk 
about.  I suspect that situations and maybe even worlds could be defined to more 
or less match up with universes (or conversely), but I wonder if it would be 
worth the effort.  In a discussion, we have a universe (a bunch of things and an 
interpretation of terms and predicates, just like a world) except that the 
things may not be all from one world and the interpretation of the predicates 
may take into account interpretations from several worlds, as needed.  There are 
many variations but this is the core.  So, presumably  (though not obviously) 
you are in this world and the glass in some other and the the eating is 
evaluated in a universe where both occur.  Alternately, of course, both you and 
the glass are in a single other world where the eating takes place.  But then it 
is a little hard to see what that all has to do with you here and now, since 
that glasseater is neither.  This is not detailed, but the details take too long 
for me to work out precisely again to participate in this discussion.  It is 
worth noticing that the universe of a particu;ar discussion is dynamic: it 
expands and sometimes contracts as the discussion proceeds. Ahah! something that 
make matters clearer is to note that universes have worlds within them, on which 
they draw.
(Incidentally, calling {su'o} and existential quantifier is somewhat misleading 
because not everything in the universe -- the range of the quantification -- 
exists, generally speaking).


----- Original Message ----
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, September 23, 2011 1:57:10 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

* Friday, 2011-09-23 at 13:14 -0400 - John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:

> I'm not sure what {pi za'u} might mean.  I suppose the default is
> either 0 or 1, so not that different from {pisu'o} after all.  What
> did you mean to say?
> {pi su'o lo broda} is an u specified subbunch but, if a quantifier,
> it, like {pi ro lo}, is over the domain of only lo broda.  Oh! Just
> saw the point of {za'u}, assuming that it's default is 0.  But then
> I don't understand {su'o pi za'u} as adding anything.

The {su'o} before the {pi} was just to explicitly make it an existential
quantifier... of course it's a horrible abuse of {pi}, which is meant to
be a decimal point, but not a new abuse.

So {su'o pi za'u ko'a}, which might or might not be the same as just {pi
za'u}, would mean "one or more subbunches of ko'a", where a subbunch of
ko'a is a sum aka plurality aka bunch (I understand these all to mean
the same things, and to agree with Chierchia's setup, at least modulo
the intensionality issues below) the atoms below which are also below
ko'a; i.e. it is any ko'e such that ko'e me ko'a, if {me} is our Among
relation.

In other words, {su'o pi za'u ko'a} would be the plural quantifier
\exists X AMONG ko'a

> Yes, bunches can include things from various worlds because domains
> often contain such: we talk about imaginary things and past things and
> so on, all not from this world but some other. This world only has
> what exists in this world in it.  There is a much longer way of laying
> this out, but that is the gist.  We need this to make general claims
> (along with other reasons), since we often want to generalize not just
> about the current whatevers but about past and future ones as well.

Naturally.

But the way I'm understanding the tense system, {lo} and {zo'e} would
only ever get evaluated *after* we've selected a world.

e.g. {mi ka'e citka lo blaci} means that in some possible world I eat
something which is glass *in that possible world*, i.e. it means
something like (ignoring all subtleties of {lo} for a moment)
\exists w. \exists b. (blaci_w(b) /\ citka_w(mi,b))

(where the first quantifier is over worlds, and the second quantifier is
over the domain, and blaci_w and citka_w are the interepretations of
blaci in the world w, being relations on the domain).

I really don't see how it could work any other way. Could you explain in
detail how you see it doing so?

Martin

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