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

On 6/7/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6/7/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/7/06, Adam D. Lopresto <adam@pubcrawler.org> wrote:
>
> > mass/team/aggregate/whole, together composed of componets x2, considered
> > jointly."  It seems pretty clearly that x1 is a mass, and that x2 is a plural
> > reference.
>
> No, it isn't a plural reference. It's a quite strictly a singular
> reference when it's the expanded form.

If a group is composed of Alice, Betty and Carrie jointly, it does not follow
that the group is composed of Alice jointly. What could that mean?


It doesn't mean anything, I don't think that it's the right way to say
it. Well, no - if that means that the group is composed of Alice, with
her seen as a component part, then that seems fine. If X is a house
with ...'innards' A B C (considered as things inside; considered
insidely), then the container has inside it Alice (considered
insidely).

(Note is that the components of a group are 'joint'/together by the
very nature of them being in a group - "jointly" is pretty much
redundant, in the same way that mass / group / aggregate / whole /
etc. are redundant.)

To be quite first-orderish about this:

Alice is a component part of X
Betty is a component part of X
Carrie is a component part of X

X is a "whole" (a mass/aggregate/composite entity/etc.), such that its
parts are considered jointly/together/etc. (in the same way graphite
and wood are only a pencil when they're considered jointly).


{gunma} does not mean "x1 has x2 as a member", that's {selcmi}.


I don't know if member is the right word, even for cmima, because it
has implications of something like a club, staying the same even when
the members change radically.

The thing with cmima is that it mentions "set", but I suppose that
it's not in the sense of a mathematical set, so it might be better,
yes.

There are several other relationships that are quite close:

cmima: x1 is a member/element of set x2; x1 belongs to group x2; x1 is
amid/among/amongst group x2
gunma: x1 is a mass/team/aggregate/whole, together composed of
components x2, considered jointly
pagbu: x1 is a part/component/piece/portion/segment of x2 [where x2 is
a whole/mass];

What's the difference between all of these? My take on it is that
{cmima} concerns things seen more seperately - a squadron of planes,
family of bears, [...]. {gunma} would concern things that look like
they're quite close together - a pencil, a book, a car, a body.
{pagbu} would be the word to use when you don't care to detail if you
see them dispersed or visibly combined.

But it doesn't really matter to me which exact interpretations are
given: all of these have the same format - there's one aggregate, and
component parts of it. (Or possibley two aggregates - perhaps the
students can be of two different groups/masses and we want to
predicate things about both of them - but this is very very rarely the
case.)


{gunma} means "x1 consists of x2".



I'd disagree with that. It's a "mass/team/aggregate/whole, together
composed of components...". "Consists" is a special term, it has very
specific pragmatics attached to it.


For example:

   le kamni cu gunma la alis jo'u la betis jo'u la karis
   "The committee consists of Alice, Betty and Carrie."

It does not follow that the committee consists of Alice.


"Consists" implies "consists only of", "includes" implies "includes
but is not limited to". If you want to translate using the full and
proper implications of "consists", you'd add {po'o}, in which case I'd
agree with you - if the committee consists of po'o Alice, Betty and
Carrie, it does not follow that the committee consists of po'o Alice.

"Consists" is not the proper word to use. "includes" might be it, but
it's best to go with at *least* all the gloss terms given: "is a
mass/team/aggregate/whole, together composed of components..."



   le kamni cu selcmi la alis .e la betis .e la karis
    "The committee has Alice, Betty and Carrie as members."

It does follow that the committee has Alice as member.

The x2 of gunma is (normally) non-distributive and the x2 of selcmi


So... non-distributivity would expand to that group expansion that I
gave, but with {po'o} thrown in? I don't think that that's right.


is (normally) distributive.

I say "normally" because the x2 of {gunma} can be distributive in
another way:

   le kamni cu gunma lo nanmu .e ba bo lo ninmu
   The committee consisted of men and (later) of women.

In this case, it does follow that the committee consisted of men, and
also that it (at a later time) consisted of women. But it is not distributive
for the men or for the women. The commitee never did consist of each of
the men nor of each of the women.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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