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

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

On 5/26/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Whenever you have a "mass", it's always a "thing made up of".
>
> That's indeed what using the word "mass" (or "group", or "bunch",
> or "collection", or "set", or whichever one chooses) does suggest.

I think that "mass" is the word to go with. "Set" is something
different - {lo vo cribe}, for example, is a set of four bears (even
though you don't perform set-type operations on it without {lu'i}).

> That's why I don't say that {loi so'i broda} refers to a mass. I only
> say that it refers to many brodas. To them directly, not to an
> additional thing on top which contains them. There are some advantages
> to doing this, i.e. not bringing in unnecessary entities.

I would say that it does refer to a mass, namely, the mass composed of
brodas. The brodas are referred to in the same way that "the store" is
in "the hats such that were in the store" - it's not the main
referent, but a referent regardless. The main referent of a loi is the
mass itself. I don't understand your comment regarding unnecessary
entities, since the mass-entity is the most critical aspect.

> (Notice that I am not saying that you can never talk about
> masses/groups/sets/etc., or that it is never useful to do so. You certainly
> can, as in for example {lo gunma be lo prenu}, "a group of people". What
> I don't do is use {loi} to intoduce a new entity.)

What do you mean by 'introduce a new entity'?

> > For
> > example, three men that carry a piano collectively are actually
> > (together) a "carrier":
> >
> > X is made up (of 'parts') "three men". X carries the piano.
>
> I would say that as:
>
> (1)    lo gunma be lo ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno
>         A group of three men carry the piano.
>
> Which may be used to describe the same situation as:
>
> (2)    loi ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno
>        Three men carry the piano.
>
> The difference I see between (1) and (2) is that in (1) there is a reference
> to a new entity, a group, that has three members, whereas in (2) there
> is no reference to any such entity, there is only reference to three men,
> which carry the piano together.

The entity is implicit. (2) expands to (1). The word {srana} (it was
srana, wasn't it?) is not said every time we use {pe}, but it's still
there.

I'd like to emphasize the difference between "group", {girzu}, and
"aggregate", {gunma}. Many (all?) things are aggregates, relatively
few things are groups. "Atom" would be {nargunma}, "that which is not
composed of any other things" (of course, we've found that atoms in
physics /are/ composed of other things, and so you would not call them
this).

> > How do you translate a blank outer?
>
> I don't think that a sumti with no outer quantifier has a hidden quantifier
> that is actually there but is just blank, so I don't need to translate what's
> not there.

{su'ero} would probably be accurate then, though I think that {su'o}
is much more sensible (since it excludes {no}).

When {su'o} is used, you don't mean some special number called "some".
You mean that the listener should make a best guess as to what the
number could be (maybe it's five, maybe it's all of whatever number is
the inner). This is exactly the behaviour of the blank outer. If you
want to say {pa}, but decide to leave it vague, then the blank or
{su'o} are equally suited for your purposes.

I agree that an implicit {su'o} emphasizes "some, probably not all
(are X)", which is probably not the intent. Aside from emphasis, there
is nothing different between the blank outer and {su'o}. They're both
vague in the exact same way.

> This is how I think of quantifiers: Any sumti without outer quantifiers
> has one or more referents. When you add an outer quantifier, it does
> not change the referents of the sumti in any way. The outer quantifier

It changes which ones have the potential to be said are-something, as
opposed to are-not-something.

> is meaningless until you use it in a sentence. It indicates how many of
> the referents of the sumti fit the predicate. So {le vo prenu}, {ro le
> vo prenu},
> {re le vo prenu} and {no le vo prenu} all have the same referents: the four
> people. The outer quantifier (when you use one) will say different things
> about those referents, when you use it in a sentence. When you don't use
> an outer quantifier you won't be saying any of the things that you could
> say by using one.

You won't be explicitly saying those things, but you will implicitly
be saying them. It's not like with {lo ci cribe cu bajra} you'll say
"I'm not saying anything about the three bears" - you are saying
something, it's just that you're not specifying what. {su'o} (or
{su'ero}) cover all the things that you could say.

> > Do you simply "not commit
> > to any interpretation"? If one meant {no} as the outer, would it be
> > acceptable to use the blank?
>
> No, one would have to use {no}. Similarly if one meant {ro}, or {su'o},
> or {re}, etc. one would have to use them.

...unless one wanted to be ambiguous. Let's say that I had {no}, or
{pa} in mind. Would it be ok to leave it blank?

> > If {ro} /can't/ be the outer, then that's
> > very much like saying that {su'o} is the default for a blank outer, I
> > think.
>
> You can't assume that inserting a {su'o} where no outer quatifier has
> been used will leave the meaning unchanged, no. In some cases you
> will get a very similar meaning, in other cases a very different one.

How will it be any different? When I say {lo ci cribe...}, I mean
"some unspecified number of the bears are [...], and the rest are
not". I find this exactly equivalent to {su'o lo ci cribe...}.

> > > There are in fact an excess of structures available. If Lojban had had
> > > a single gadri things would have been so much easier.
> >
> > Then why don't you have a specific structure for "ambiguously"
> > ("either together or individually, but not specifically either"), in
> > the same way that there's a specific structure for "together" ({loi})
> > and a specific structure for "individually" ({lo}).
>
> {lo} does not mean "individually". {lo} gives no indication as to the
> distributivity or non-distributivity of the predicate in which the sumti
> is used.

Yes, that's your interpretation. Now, if in your interpretation, {lo}
means "ambiguously[...]", then what means "individually"? You don't
seem to have a word for individually.

> > > {ro lo mapku} = each hat
> > > {lo ro mapku} = all hats
> >
> > All of what hats?
>
> All things that count as hats.

All things that count as hats are All hats (existing now, future,
past, hypothetically, etc.). Your "all" is very different. Your "all"
means "all of some relevant/contextually-sensible group".

> > You're clearly not talking about *all* hats. You're
> > talking about all of a relevant group of hats.
>
> If you bring in a relevant group, that implies there is another group,
> an irrelevant one, that is excluded.

Right. For example, the group of hats at the hat factory, or the group
of hats in Jane's closet. Surely they're excluded from your "relevant
group".

> You can do that in the metalanguage, when explaining
> how something was meant, but it can't be part of what you are saying, because
> {lo ro mapku} leaves no thing that counts as a hat out.

That *counts* as a hat out? It depends on how you define "counts".
There are two ways:

1) everything that is a hat. future, now, past, hypothetical, etc.
2) hats relevant to the current context.

1 leaves no hats out. 2 leaves *plenty* of hats out.

So again:

> {ro lo mapku} = each hat
> {lo ro mapku} = all hats

All of what hats?

Please don't use ambiguous words like "counts" or "all" unless you're
willing to explain what exactly you mean by them.

> > "All of the bears" (in
> > the zoo), "all of the hats" (in the store). There's a group there.
>
> When you make the restriction explicit, yes.

There is no explicit restriction. You said that {lo ro cribe} meant
"all bears that are in the zoo". Does {lo ro cribe} have a restriction
aside from bears? No.

> > > The first one has to be distributive. The second one may or may not be,
> > > depending on the context.
> >
> > What is {ro lo ro mapku}? "Each hat out of all the hats"?
>
> Yes, "each of all hats".

"Each of all hats" means:
1) each one of All hypothetical/now/future/blah hats.

"Each of all *the* hats" means:
2) each one out of [all of a group of contextually relevant hats].

Which one do you mean?

> > How about
> > {re lo ro mapku}? "Each of two hats out of all the hats"?
>
> "Exactly two of all hats".

I'm going to guess that you mean:

"Exactly two out of all of a certain group of hats".

> > So omitting
> > the outer means that it is ambiguous?
>
> Only in the sense that remaining silent is ambiguous between all
> the things I could have said but didn't. But that's not what "ambiguity"
> normally means.

Yes, it is. "Open to more than one interpretation" is the standard
definition, even in the context of linguistics.

http://www.answers.com/ambiguous
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ambiguous

If you want to say that a certain *word* is ambiguous, you say "ambiguous word".


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