[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 5/9/06, Jorge Llambías
> <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/9/06, Maxim Katcharov
> <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I understand this and see the utility. But
> I also see a major problem:
> > > this approach makes it so that Lojban has
> no way to refer to all bears
> > > specifically (specifically as in the
> opposite of vague in "in Lojban
> > > you can express things as specifically or
> vaguely as you'd like").
> >
> > I did a Google search for "the price of
> infinite precision" and among
> > other things came up with this:
>
<http://satirist.org/whale/2001/09/24-clue.html>
> > What is that about, does anyone understand?
> >
> > Anyway, you can be as precise as you want to,
> if you are willing
> > to pay the price.
> 
> Well, the point is that you /can/ be as precise
> as you want to. In the
> pen example, I restrict fully, right down to
> that single pen that I'm
> thinking of, using {ro __ ro vica cu penbi}.
> There's no need to be
> "infinitely" precise here: three words (ro, vi,
> penbi) do the job
> completely. In fact, if you do choose the road
> of restricting it
> yourself by using an inner ro, I doubt that you
> have much to worry
> about in most cases. But if a hard case comes
> along, well, you'd
> probably let context do it, but at least you
> /have/ a way to properly
> and fully restrict, if you want to.

Of curse you can be as precise as you want (for a
price); no one has denied that.  I thought the
issue was whether tht can substitute for
specificity and there the fact seems to be that
the two notions are independent though
accidntally covering some similar areas.  That
is, they both can be used to pick out particular
things, the one overtly the other covertly.  And
specificity, being covert, is cheaper and faster
(and guranteed success).
And again, what does all this have to do with
{ro} in various places?

> > The idea that a relevance-independent
> absolute {ro} makes sense at all,
> > in any case, is doubtful. Even for natural
> kinds, let alone for things with less
> > clear prototypes. Would you say, for example,
> that every bear was born
> > to a bear? If yes, how can that be? If not,
> how can that be?
> >
> 
> Of course it's useless when it's something so
> general. But I'm
> probably not going to be making any statements
> about all bears (and if
> I was, I'd probably be using "the definition of
> bear is..." instead).
> But what if I want to restrict down to "all
> bears that are in that
> cage", or "all buildings on my street"? This
> sort of
> complete-restriction is used all the time!

Yes it is.  and it works in Lojban just the way
it does in English -- you tag on restrictions
(with {poi} or tanru or...). And so?
 
> I don't understand what you mean by
> "relevance-independant".

There is no appeal to relevance in the
definition, but simply (as I said before) all
actual, possible, and impossible ones -- every
conceivable case.

> > > What if context overwhelmingly favors three
> bears? For example, three
> > > bears are chasing us -- I say {__ __ ro
> cribe}, and obviously I mean
> > > all these three bears, right? But what if
> my intent is to say "all
> > > bears can't climb trees"? (however wrong I
> may be.) I have no proper
> > > (and consistent) way to say this, because
> in this case using an inner
> > > {ro} clearly would default it to "all of
> the bears chasing us here-now
> > > can't climb trees", which is not what I
> want to say.
> >
> > Some strategies that you might use: {lo ro
> sai cribe} (a more intense {ro}
> > than might be expected), {lo ro cai cribe}
> (an extremely intense {ro}),
> > {lo ro cribe poi zasti}, {lo ro cribe poi
> zasti gi'a xanri}, etc.
> >
> 
> Well, aside from the sheer strangeness of "an
> extremely intense 'all'
> ", there can still be examples provided where
> that "intense all" still
> wouldn't, by context, mean "all bears". It
> seems like a very imprecise
> way to do it. In your last example, the zasti
> and xanri restrictions
> wouldn't do much if that "ro" doesn't restrict
> to them completely. I
> really do think that my suggestion, {L_ cribe}
> = "all bears in
> context" (instead of defaulting to unacceptable
> {ro} or ambiguous
> {su'o}) is a good one for consideration.

{ro cai}, though I have never seen it before, is
less odd in Lojban that the corresponding phrase
is in English.  I expect that it would be pretty
immediately recognized even without all the
context in which this case is embedded.  But I
have suggested yet some other (less odd?)
approaches as well.
I still get the feeling that you do not yet
understand how {ro} and {le} and the like work in
Lojban and that your own theories about how they
*should* work are interfering with getting them
under control.  It is hard to explain your
comments otherwise. 



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