[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

["Maxim Katcharov" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 5/6/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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 ...".
x

Because lo is used.

> "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".

What kind of each are you talking about? "each bear" is ambiguous, not
generic, I would think.

> > 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.

I think that it is about specific bears. What, if not specific bears,
could you be talking about when you say {lo ci cribe}? Non-specific
bears? In my view, non-specific is better expressed as {ci lo ro
cribe}.

I you previously said that (with the focus on bears, and not berries):

{ro lo ci cribe cu citka lo ro jbari pe mi} - "Each of three bears
eats all my berries."
{ci lo ro cribe cu citka lo ro jbari pe mi} - "of all bears, there are
exactly three such that each of them eats all my berries."

When you say "exactly three", I don't think that you mean /only/ three
({po'o}). And if not that, then "exactly" seems unneccisary. Is it?
And so, what is the difference between:

{ro lo ci cribe}
{ci lo ro cribe}

Consider that it may be:

[unspecific subset of] lo [a specific 'set' of bears that I'm thinking
of] ("set" may not be the same as the lojbanic set.)

> > 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.

This is good, but I was hoping that it would immediately illustrate my point.

> > > > 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.

Yes, "all bears" is what I meant, I just wanted to be explicit that I
meant "all bears", and not "all of some bears that I have in mind" or
anything like that.


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