[lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

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

On 5/24/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/23/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Overall I don't think that it's a good idea to have {lo} not marked.
>
> It's a very good thing to be able to be precise when you need/want to.
> It is also a very good thing not to be forced to be precise when you
> don't need/want to.

You can be ambiguous between cat and elephant by saying "animal". You
can be ambiguous between 1 and 20 by saying "some". You can be
ambiguous between tree and happiness by saying something like
"concept". But to be ambiguous between "each one of these did" and
"the thing (with parts: each one of these) did" ... there is no
superclass that I'm aware of. Ambiguity should not be allowed unless
there's an actual superclass that *covers both meanings*. At the far
end of the scale at which this sort of ambiguity sits are words with
multiple definitions - both meanings aren't covered by it, it's just
that people use the word because they were too lazy to think of and
use the proper one. So no, I'd rather have the speaker say an extra
syllable.

But that's just me. If you want to introduce something that expresses
this sort of ambiguity, you can go right ahead (and I think you have),
but you can't do it at the cost of structures that already exist and
serve a good purpose.

> > You should be able to say the following:
> >
> > {??? nanmu cu bevri lo pa pipno}
> > e1: individually, two (and only two) of the group of two men carried the piano.
> > e2: individually, all of the group of two men carried the piano
> > e3: together, two (and only two) of the group of two men carried the piano.
> > e4: together, all of the group of two men carried the piano
> >
> > 1-4 I would say are:
> >
> > 1: {re lo vo nanmu cu bevri lo pa pipno}
> > 2: {ro lo vo ...}
> > 3: {ro loi vo ...} / {lu'o re lo vo ...}
> > 4: {ro loi vo ...} / {lu'o ro lo vo ...}
>
> Ah, you meant inner {vo}, I was a bit confused by your versions in English,
> where you wrote "two" instead of "four". Agreed for 1 and 2, and also

Yes, there was a similarity between re and ro that I didn't like. I
see that it came out all sorts of messed up when I replaced them.
Corrected (hopefully):

{??? nanmu cu bevri lo pa pipno}
e1: individually, two (and only two) of the group of four** men
carried the piano.
e2: individually, all of the group of four** men carried the piano
e3: together, two (and only two) of the group of four** men carried the piano.
e4: together, all of the group of four** men carried the piano

1-4 I would say are:
1: {re lo vo nanmu cu bevri lo pa pipno}
2: {ro lo vo ...}
3: {re** loi vo ...} / {lu'o re lo vo ...}
4: {ro loi vo ...} / {lu'o ro lo vo ...}

> for the {lu'o} version of 3 and 4, although {loi} instead of {lu'o} would be
> grammatical there too, so they would probably be preferred:
> {loi re lo vo nanmu...} and {loi ro lo vo nanmu}.
>
> > Forget distributivity/non distributivity. Before we even consider
> > them, we have to agree on this: the inner says "this is the quantity
> > of the group that I am referring to",
>
> Corrrect.
>
> > and the outer says "this is the
> > number of that group that I am going to say something about".
>
> Not quite. You are going to say something about all the things you are
> referring to, why else would you want to refer to them? To see this more

Yes, I understand this very well - I wanted to emphasize that the
actual relationship specifically applies to the outer: I say that only
4 of these 8 are sitting. The actual "sitting" relationship doesn't
directly apply to the 8. My use of "saying something about" was not as
exacting as your use.

> clearly, consider this example: there is a row of four chairs, with a person
> sitting on each of the chairs and another person standing behind it.
> We can say:
>
> (1)     vo le bi prenu cu zutse
>          Exactly four of the eight people are sitting.
>
> (2)     naku mu le bi prenu cu zutse
>          It is not the case that exactly five of the eight people are sitting.
>
> (3)     ro le vo sanli cu trixe pa le vo zutse
>          Each of the four standers is behind exactly one of the sitters.
>
> Now, perhaps in (1) you can imagine that you are selecting a group
> of four to say something about them, but which group of five are you
> selecting in (2), and which one of the sitters are you selecting in (3)?

That's right, the outer is not specific.

> In (1) you are saying something about the eight people: that exactly
> four of them are sitting.

Indeed, what I was getting at was that the relationship (sitting)
applies directly to the four. Indirectly, it means that the non-four
are not sitters. My point was that you surely aren't saying that the
eight are sitting.

> In (2) you are saying something about the eight
> people: that it is not the case that exactly five of them are sitting. In
> (3) you are saying something about the four standers and the four
> sitters: that each of the first ones is behind exactly one of the second
> ones.
>
> > And finally, what {lu'a} and {lu'o} mean to you, if they mean anything.
>
> lu'o = lo gunma be
> lu'a = lo cmima be

You didn't illustrate any of the others that I asked for. The reason I
asked was to show you that in throwing in an "ambiguous" version, you
run out of room, and end up being inconsistent: sometimes the use of a
lo means "individually", sometimes it's ambiguous. You agreed that
before you get into this distrib/nondistrib/together/individually
business, you need to be able to say all the various {x LE y} things
clearly.

1 "some/all of the bears"
2 "some/all of the four bears"
3 "four of the bears"
4 "some/all of bears" ("some/all of [all of a set-of-bears]")
5 "all of the bears"
6 "four of bears" ("four of [all of a set-of-bears]")
7 "all of the four bears"

So there are 7 things to say. You want to say them in 3 different ways:

a: "individually, ..."
b: "together, ..."
c: "either individually or together, ..."

3 * 7 = 21. But you have the 7 variants, but only {loi} and {lo}. 2 *
7 = 14. Clearly, you need to sacrifice being able to say a few things.
7/21 (1 of 3 ways) are covered by loi - when you have loi, you mean
'b', so we have to worry only about saying 'a' and 'c' using the
remaining 7 {lo}-based methods:

1 {lo cribe}
2 {lo vo cribe}
3 {vo lo cribe}
4 {lo ro cribe} - ambiguously "all of the bears"
5 {ro lo cribe} - individually "all of the bears"
6 {vo lo ro cribe}
7 {ro lo vo cribe}

But where did your...

4:"individually, an unspecified quantity of all of a relevant group of X"
e.g. "some of all the hats were beautiful"
5:"ambiguously, all of an unspecified quantity of X"

...disappear to? (Not to imply that I think that those are the proper
ways to say those things, only that they're they ways that you say
them.) And how do you say 2 and 3 both individually, and ambiguously?


Point being, you don't have enough Lojbanic structures available to be
able to add "ambiguously", without scattering what is a very good and
consistent method. And that's what has happened.

Putting aside togetherness/individuality

"all the hats were beautiful"

can very well translate to

 {ro lo mapku cu melbi}

based on the assertions that you made regarding inner and outer
quantifiers in all of the latter half of your last response.

Here's a rather interesting statement: You don't have any real meaning
for inner {ro}. "All of some group" is handled by {ro lo mapku}. But
because you could, you gave inner {ro} (with a blank outer, at least)
the meaning:

 {lo ro mapku}
(some?, all?) out of all of the relevant group of hats
"all the hats" (e.g. "...in the store")

which, based on the rules that you clearly laid out for inner and
outer quantifiers, is effectively the same as:

{ro lo mapku}
all of the relevant group of hats

Same meanning, strange phrasing ("X out of [all out of Y]").

So now you have two ways of saying the same thing, except one of them
is very strange, and implies really strange interpretations for its
counterparts:

 {ci lo ro mapku}
"three of all the hats" (e.g. "...in the store")

*which makes no sense*: why aren't you just saying

 {ci lo mapku}
"three of the hats" {e.g. in the store}

instead?

But why worry about that? ...Anyway, you have two ways to say the same
thing. Clearly, this is an invitation to make one of those mean
"individually" and the other "ambiguously". And that's how you've
handled it.

...

I think that I described the rationale behind your interpretation of
inner {ro}, and I think that this rationale simply isn't sensible, nor
consistent. Perhaps there's an alternate explanation that is much more
sensible? I don't think that there is.


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