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[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le
On 5/12/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/12/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/12/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> > It would refer to anything that could relevantly
> > be said to be a bear in the cage, and any other bear in the cage besides
> > the ones we've been talking about before can certainly be relevantly said
> > to be a bear in the cage from what you are saying.
>
> We havn't been talking about those bears before. This is the whole point.
New relevant referents can and are constanly introduced in any
conversation. "Relevant" does not mean "we've been talking about
They're introduced through a hack in which you have to find something
that makes no sense in the current context, which makes the listener
say "ah, ok... I guess he's talking about something else now, I
think".
it". I don't really see what the problem is. If we've been talking
Consider: I've been talking to a zookeeper about 20 certain bears for
the past hour, and in fact, I'm in the middle of a sentence regarding
them just as we get to a somewhat filthy cage/habitat, in which I see
2 of those 20 bears. I say "take all the bears in the cage to the
infirmary for a checkup, right now". The zookeeper takes the two bears
out of the cage, and begins shutting the door. I stop him, and say
"take ALL the bears in the cage to the infirmary for a checkup". Is
the difference in meaning, and the utility of that difference
apparent? I hope that it is. This is the difference between position 1
and 2, and it's essential in, to give one example, contractual
writing. But really, it's useful anywhere that you want to explicitly
state what you mean, without having the listener guess based on
context (without having context get in the way of clear
communication).
about twenty bears and now you want to talk about other bears as well,
and you think I might be fixated on the twenty for some reason, then
say something like: "Now, taking into account not just the twenty
bears that we've been talking about but other bears as well, ..." I don't
Haha. So, if I want to talk of all bears in a cage, I'm going to have
to say {__ ro cribe poi [in the cage, and are in context¬ in
context]}. I'm boggled that you'd even suggest this, when the method
I've presented is so much cleaner and more sensible. This method you
suggest, instead of fixing the problem, suggests that speakers simply
keep away from it, or "work around it".
I've been trying to make my examples quite general, but you show me
that general speech, even in Lojban (at least this aspect) has many
work-arounds.
This is much like insisting that nouns and verbs are all that is
needed to communicate (which is essentially true), and that this
concept of a predicate relationship (which nouns and verbs are
essentially based on/aspects of) is simply unneccisary. I mean, yeah,
you're right, but there's a better way to do it.
think such extreme measures are called for very often, but they are
always available.
> > There is no universally fixed referent of "bears
> > in that cage" that can be relied on for every possible context ever.
>
> Yes, there is: "all the bears in that cage now". How is this even
> remotely ambiguous?
I wouldn't say it's ambiguous. But I would say that every expression
can eventually have different referents in different contexts. For example:
"All the bears now in that cage are eating."
(Probably the most common referent.)
"If all the monkies in that cage were bears, then all the bears now in that cage
would outnumber the rabbits."
(A very odd referent.)
And in any case, I don't know what your point is here. Even if
"all the bears in that cage" would always and under all possible
circumstances have one and the same referent, that wouldn't change
the fact that countless other {lo ro broda} forms have more easily
varying referents with context.
That's the point, they wouldn't have ambiguous referants. They'd all
have exacting referants, "all such that are bears, such that are in
this cage". Even "all such that are bears" would have an exacting
referant: all bears.
> So you're saing that {L_ cribe} defaults to {L_ su'o cribe}, "some
> relevant bears"?
No, I oppose default quantifiers. I don't take {lo cribe} to have any
implicit inner or outer quantifier. Inner {su'o} may look very harmless,
but it can have many connotations that I don't really care for. I'm
happier with no quantifier expressed meaning no quantifier implied.
Ok, let's consider that an inner {ro} emphasises that you mean all
relevant (/not/ all that have been mentioned, but only those relevant
to the sentance), and {su'o} means 'some of the relevant'. So, what
does a blank inner mean? It doesn't mean "nothing". It, to the
listener, means "those that are relevant here". Which sounds oddly
similar to an inner {ro}. Can you provide me an example that
illustrates the difference?
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