Re: TECH: {loi} & {loe}

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

John:
> > > Therefore, "lo djacu" represents one or more water-quantities
> > > (of indeterminate but definite size);
> > Yes...
> > > "loi djacu" represents a collective plural of these water-quantities,
> > yes...
> > > which in fact is a porridgification of water.
> > No.
> > Or rather, not necessarily. Suppose it is the argument of
> > "is sufficient to make the pitch unusable". This is (in the context
> > I conjure up) true of the collectivity of le djacu, but not of
> > each djacu distributively. None of this means that I have to
> > conceptually eradicate the boundaries that distinguish one djacu
> > from another. As proof, notice that in English we can say
> > "here are cheeses weighing 10 kilos together" - which is distinct from
> > "here is cheese weighing 10 kilos"; {loi} gives the former, not the
> > latter.
> This seems to be the core of the dispute.  I grant that the two English
> sentences are distinct in some sense.  But I cannot conceive of any
> circumstances in which I would assent to one but dissent from the other.
> (If you can see any, please enlighten me.)

I will go along with you, at least until we find such a discriminatory
circumstance.

We might feel that - pragmatically at least - use of the collectivizer
implies that the (surely less marked) distributive form is *not*
appropriate. That is, {lei cirla cu ki'orgra li pano} would generally
be taken to imply (i) that there is more than one cirla, and (ii) that
{le cirla cu kiorgra li pano} is false. To me, a porridgifier does not
to the same extent imply that the distributive form would be untrue.

> Therefore, I claim that "loi cirla cu ki'orgra li pano" can be
> translated either way.

That doesn't follow. For example, what it takes to be a cheese in English
may be different from what it takes to be pa cirla.

> Yes, that is my understanding.  "I never understood myopic singulars"
> was elliptical for "I never understood how any one could interpret
> Lojban mass gadri as producing myopic singularization."

Indeed - yet the first account of loi/lei I ever encountered on lojban
list was Mr Rabbit (which is surely not supposed to be understood
as a kind of midgard-rabbit-hydra).

> > In a collectivity the whole has various properties independent of its
> > parts; it has a certain autonomy from them. And crucially, it has
> > discernible parts. A porridge has no discernible parts (though it
> > can have ingredients); and it is not autonomous from whatever
> > constitutes it. (Most individuals are porridges.)
> Humph.  The porridge I ate last Friday had discernible parts: the banana
> slices.  The water and cream-of-wheat, however, had become inseparable
> as a result of the cooking process.  I think your distinction is
> unnecessarily fine.

You can conceptualize your gruel as having parts or as lacking parts.
Only if you conceptualize it as lacking parts are you conceptualizing
it as a mass.

> A group of 5 people has easily discernible parts, and very few emergent
> properties. A group of 500,000 people has parts that are quite difficult
> to discern unless you look on such a small scale that you can't see the
> group any more; its emergent properties are its most important ones; it
> behaves quite autonomously.
> But I have no trouble calling both of these "loi prenu".

For the time being I think I'll concede, but will assume (if only
pragmatically) that loi/lei implies (a) suore and (b) that lo/le would
be false.

> > > Certainly it doesn't match my concept of a species (jutsi), which is
> > > an individual, not a class or set or collective.  >Homo sapiens< is
> > > an individual, ontologically on a par with other individuals; its
> > > components are various (biological) individuals alive or dead.
> > Classes, sets and collectivities are individuals. (As far as I can see.)
> > I'd have thought a species is a class. I can't imagine what's your
> > concept.
> I find this hard to pin down exactly in words.  >H.s.< is not a set,
> because sets are defined by their members, and >H.s.< would be the same
> if, say, I had never lived. It is not a natural kind either, because
> natural kinds are defined by their properties, and >H.s.< cannot be
> defined by a property (many have tried and have failed).  It is not a
> collection of any sort.

I agree it isn't a set. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "collection".
I think it is a class - it has members, but exists independently of
them. (I.e. I'm saying it IS a kind.) The virtual impossibility of
stating the conditions on membership of the class does not necessarily
mean there are none - rather, it means we rarely have cause to need to
know them, and hence don't know them.

> > > Second, note that tenseless Lojban bridi (unlike their English
> > > translations) are potentially any of "caa", "ka'e", "nu'i", or "pu'e".
> > I am so appalled by this rule that I haven't yet been able to bring
> > myself to face up to it.
> > Few concepts are as ill-understood as these. (If you think logic or
> > linguistics has a ready account of them, please point me to it.) Thus
> > they shouldn't even have cmavo status, and to have the default
> > unspecified is just a nightmare. (Usage goes against it, though.)
> "Unspecified" just means that the domain of interpretation can compel
> an unmarked sentence to belong to any of these types, just as an
> un-tensed sentence can be made to belong to any time and place. Of
> course the overwhelming majority of unflagged sentences are "ca'a",
> because that's what pragmatics insists on, but there are exceptions
> like "all ducks fly".

None of that allays my worries. I wonder how one will be able to tell
whether usage respects this rule?

In the meantime, to be sure of being rightly understood, one is obliged
to put {caa} in every bridi. (I assume that whenever one of the others
is meant, it is used.)

coo, mie And