yet more masses again

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

And:
>> Would it be {loi tanxe cu nenri le mi kumfa}? If yes, does it
>> say anything different from {pisu'o loi tanxe cu nenri le mi kumfa}?
>
>The current rule is that those two are the same.  Are they different
>from {luo ro tanxe cu nenri le mi kumfa}?  Well, yes if {mi viska lua pa
>cukta} is different from {mi viska pi suo lua pa cukta}, and no if
>they're the same.

If Cowan has not stipulated the default quantifiers for the lu'a series
in his papers, they probably need to be.  My first inclination would be
to assume that they match lo/loi/lo'i, but perhaps there is grounds to
have them match le/lei/le'i.  Or maybe in this case, the default will
depend on what is inside the brackets - if specific le-series, if
non-specific, lo-series determines the quantifiers.  I don't much like
that kind of vagueness, but I can see counterexamples to common sense
can be invented for any specific choice of quantifiers.

>> For something to be inside a room, it is usually required that
>> all its physical parts, or most of them, be there. For something
>> to be seen, it is not required that all its physical parts be
>> seen. Those are part of the definition of "be inside" and "see",
>> irrespective of whether the arguments are individuals or masses
>> of individuals.
>
>I basically agree. There are lots of predicates that don't care
>whether their sumti is the whole of something or a portion of
>something. This is why I don't want to force fractionators on
>{lei}. I now accept that {pisuo loi} is okay as a default.

Ah.  Now I see where you are leading - the same place as me for the lu'a
series.

The problem is that there IS a default quantifier in either case, in
that one must assume and insert a value to determine the semantics, even
if none is specified.  The question is whether that default value is
uniform across all of semantic space.  We have assumed that it is for
lo-series and le-series, and may not have specified for lu'a series.

>> > I would say that the mass of all boxage is in the next room.
>> I wouldn't. Only a tiny fraction of it is there. Unless we are
>> using "is" differently. Do you mean "nenri" or do you mean
>> "is present"?
>
>I mean that the next room is stuzi or se zvati be luo ro tanxe.  While
>luo ro tanxe is arguably nenri, it would at best be misleading to claim
>that.

This is purely a question of English semantics since it is not clear
without translating into Lojban whether "the mass of all boxes" is loi
tanxe or lu'o ro tanxe.  Both are equally valid translations of the
English, and without any context, you have no reason to favor one over
the other.

Jorge:
>In my opinion, it is not the referent that is a mass or an individual.
>A given referent can be both.  There are many ways to refer to a given
>object.  One is by name, as in "the Pacific Ocean".  Another way is by
>description.  The mass/individual are different types of description.
>The individual description is much like a name in this regard, you could
>say "the ocean" to refer to the same object, and there is nothing massy
>about it because we have not even mentioned components, as far as this
>description is concerned, there may be no components to it at all.  You
>could also refer to the very same object as {lei djacu}, "the waters" or
>something.  Now you are saying that the object has components, and that
>the components are djacu.  But this does not mean that our claims about
>the object will change in any way, nor that they will have to apply to
>the components.  All that {lei} gives us is another way to refer to the
>same object, starting from the components instead of just from the
>object itself.  Objects are not masses or individuals.  It is the
>referential description that is a mass or individual reference.

Hey Jorge, we actually agree for once!

And again:
>> > E.g. "I like the bookage",
>> > as distinct from "I like all of the bookage" {mi nelci (piro) lei
>> > cukta},
>> And how would those differ in meaning? You either like it or you
>> don't. If you want to add whether there are components that you like
>> or not, you may do so. To like something, do you have to like
>> each component, or most components, or just the general effect
>> they produce? That's a matter of the meaning of "like", independent
>> of masses.
>
>Exactly.  That's why I don't want to be obliged to make explicit whether
>I like the entirety of the bookage.  What matters is that overall I like
>it.  "Do you like the book" and "Do you like all of the book" can
>receive different answers.

piro entails pisu'o.  I think the problem here is again English
semantics.  We translate "part of the mass" with "pisu'o", whereas the
English by making the word "part" explicit excludes "all".  Logic and
Lojban do not exclude "all" when they say "some".  So in Lojban, "do you
like the book" would be expressed so as to backtranslate to "do you like
part/all of the book."  This is one reason why I tend to translate
Lojban with Lojlish, giving the stilted by more accurate "Is it true
that you like at least some of the (mass of the) book.

Jorge:
>> Is there any x such that you see a contrast between x and the whole of
>> x?
>
>In English?  Or do you mean if I see any contrast between {ta} and {piro
>ta} in Lojban?  I don't, other than emphasis.
>
>> Are {mi prami ti} and {mi prami pi ro ti} necessarily synonymous?
>
>I don't see any difference, I just see the {piro} as totally redundant
>there, and so maybe being used to make the {ti} bigger. (Something
>like "these" instead of "this".) But if {ti} has been already determined
>to have the same referent, then I don't see the difference.

Jorge.  You just used the example of pointing at a red thing while
conceiving of it as a mass with a non-visible blue thing.  If you say
"mi viska ta" while conceiving of the mass you aren't saying that you
see the whole of it.

I think that most of the pro-sumti that are not established by
definition (ko'a) or prenex (da) are going to be taken as masses,
remembering that the default piso'u mass does not rule out piro mass.

>> "Do you like the book" and "Do you like all of the book" can receive
>> different answers.
>
>In English, I agree.  Because "Do you like all of the book" has the
>connotation of asking about whether you like each part of the book.  But
>that is not the case for {piro}, in my opinion.

I don't agree.  Let us change to "citka lei cidja".  I think that eating
"piro lei cidja" means that you ate more than if you ate "piso'a lei
cidja".  I think the same would go for "nelci piso'a le cukta".

>"Do you like all of the book" would be better translated as {xu do nelci
>ro lu'a le selcku}, rather than {xu do nelci piro le selcku}, which is
>the same as {xu do nelci le selcku}.

I don't see any obvious difference between "ro lu'a le selcku" and "le
selcku" which itself is "ro le selcku".

lojbab