[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

["Jorge Llambías" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 5/6/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > {ro lo cribe cu citka ro lo ro jbari pe mi} - "(some specific) bears
> > > ate (, specifically,) all my berries"
> >
> > "Each bear eats each of all my berries"
>
> Yes. But by my definition, it would not mean "Each bear of all bears
> ate...", but rather "Each bear of some number of bears ate...". I'm
> not sure which you meant.

Neither. I meant just "each bear eats ...". "Each of all bears" would have
to be {ro lo ro cribe} and "each of some bears" would have to be
{ro lo su'o cribe}. {lo} by itself does not contain any hidden {ro} or
{su'o}.

> > > Two questions before I can give a better explanation:
> > >
> > > What is the difference between {ro lo ro cribe} and {ro le ro cribe}
> > > by your definition?
> >
> > ro lo ro cribe = each of all bears
> > ro le ro cribe = each of all the bears (i.e. each of the bears I'm
> > talking about)
>
> This is expressed better by:
>
> ro lo ro cribe = each of all bears
> ro lo cribe = each of all the bears (i.e. each of the bears I'm talking about)

For the second one I only get "each bear".

> ro lo ci cribe = each of the three bears (i.e. each of the three bears
> I'm talking about)

I get "each of three bears", not necessarily about specific bears.

> Just don't default the inner quantifier, or let context override the
> default (and if context overrides the default, then just don't default
> it). Or is there some reason that the inner quantifier is being
> defaulted? I think that this defaulting is an artifact from when {lo
> ci} meant that there were three in the universe, and is no longer
> appropriate.

Where am I defaulting the inner quentifier? On the contrary, I am
not introducing any quantifiers that are not made explicit.

The paradigm goes something like this:

lo: converts a selbri into a sumti
le: lo + specificity
loi: lo + nondistributivity
lei: lo + specificity + nondistributivity

Footnote: The feature of specificity brings with it a relaxation on the need
to take the selbri meaning as veridical, moving towards the extreme of
names where reference is all that survives and meaning is discarded. This
is only a footnote! It should not be taken as the definitory property of
{le}, which is specificity.

No quantifiers, inner or outer, are implicit.

> > > How would you say "I mean every last bear in the universe", keeping in
> > > mind that {le pa cribe} would not say anything about the amount of
> > > bears in the universe?
> >
> > ro cribe poi zasti bu'u lo munje = each bear that exists in the universe
>
> Heh, yes indeed, though it was not what I was expecting. Would {lo ro
> cribe}, qualified by time (and space?) work also?

For bringing images about the whole universe? I don't think so.
I don't think {lo ro bear} is any more precise than "all bears" in English.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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