Re: any? (response to Desmond)

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la lojbab cusku di'e

> >        lo remna cu mamta mi
> >        A human being is mother to me
> >
> >is true.  Not by virtue of the fact that {lo remna} is a human being,
> >but because of the fact that there is one human being that is in
> >relationship {mamta} with {mi}.
>
> We may be dealing with the idiosyncracies of individual predicates here.
> Replace mammta with "se bersa" and the answer is probably indeterminate,
> since you (probably) do not know whether you (will) have a son in a
> time-free sense.

Time is a different problem. Seen from a timeless perspective,

        lo remna cu bersa mi
        A human being is a son to me

is true if there is a human being that is (timeless) in relation
{bersa} with {mi}. This has nothing to do with statements like
a = b which are indeterminate if all we know is that a and b are
numbers, while a + a = 2a is true, even if all we know is that
a is a number.

        lo remna cu bersa lo remna

is true, not indeterminate, but for a different reason than a + a = 2a.
The sentence is true because there are certain {lo remna} that make it so.
The equation is true for mathematical reasons, and as a consequence, it will
be true no matter how much more we restrict the value that a can take.

> >> On
> >> the other hand, in the absence of specific information about a and b, the
> >> sentence
> >>         a^2 - b^2 = (a-b)^2
> >> (though a perfectly acceptable sentence) is neither true nor false.
>
> I think that this claim is a definition and not a given.  You know they
> are numbers, and you know that there is at least one number assignment
> that could make it true (b=0).  You lack specific information as to
> whether that (or any other specific value) is a permissible value of
> "b".

It is a definition if he claims that it is true. Since he explicitly says
that it is neither true nor false, it makes no restrictions on a and b.

> Pragmatic usage of "lo" has incomplete specification of necessary
> restrictions.

I really don't understand what that means.

> >Sentences with {lo} in Lojban are usually true or false.
>
> Is "mi nitcu lo [unikorn]' true or false?

If it is true that {mi} and at least one of those that [unicorn] are in
relationship {nitcu}, then it is true. This is different from the situation
withb the mathematical statements above.

> "In the absence of specific
> information" applies much more often to mathematical problems than to
> linguistic ones.

I don't understand that either.

> >For example:
> >
> >        lo remna cu kalte lo remna
> >        A human hunts a human
> >
> >is true only if there really is at least one human that hunts at least
> >one human.  It's not a matter of giving values to each {lo remna}.
>
> Umm.  Let me hedge this a bit.  Remember that we have some modals that
> have significant truth-functional import, and some of them involve
> potentiality.  We can translate "inflammable" by "jelca", not requiring
> explicit use of "ka'e".  Is "lo remna cu jelca" true or false? - depends
> on the modalities.

You are bringing up things that have nothing to do with the quantification
problem under discussion. Write {ca'a} explicitly in all the sentences
that we've been using and the arguments don't change.

> >If "a" and "b" were replaced by {lo namcu} = "a number" in your
> >sentence, it would be a true sentence in Lojban, because there indeed
> >exists at least one "a" and at least one "b" that make it true.
>
> "'a' number" in the same sense as "I need 'a' box"???

{lo namcu} in the same sense as {lo tanxe} in {mi nitcu lo tanxe}, yes.

NOT "'a' number" in the same sense as "I need 'a' box" no, because usually
this last has the opaque sense where 'a' is closer to 'any' than to
'certain'.

a > b is neither true nor false in his system, because "a" and "b" don't
have any values assigned.

{lo namcu cu zmadu lo namcu} is true in Lojban, because there indeed is at
least a number that is greater than at least a number.

That is why his "indeterminates" are not at all equivalent to Lojban's {lo}.

> >> It
> >> becomes true in the presence of the information that b=0, and it becomes
> >> false in the presence of the information that a=5 and b=3.
> >
> >That sounds like it might be more or less equivalent (at least for some
> >purposes) to Lojban {le}
> >
> >        le remna cu mamta mi
> >        The human is mother to me.
> >
> >is true if by {le remna} I mean the human who is my mother.  In that
> >sense, you can say that it's neither true nor false in the absence of
> >information of what {le remna} is referring to, but that information is
> >at least in principle always obtainable (by asking the speaker who they
> >meant by it).  From what I understand, your "a" need not have a value
> >obtainable even in principle.
>
> Ask Shakespeare what he means by various passages in his plays.

I don't understand how this fits here either.

> >> I believe that indeterminates in this sense play a fundamental role in
> >> everyday reasoning as well as in mathematical reasoning.  Ordinary language
> >> accomodates indeterminates nicely.  The use of 'a box' in the sentence "I
> >> need a box." is an example.  It is a way of referring to something whose
> >> type is known, but about which we have no other information.
> >
> >I think something like that is what I meant by my proposal of {xe'e},
> >although I don't have it that clear in my mind.
>
> I think that pragmatically, "lo" is used as a non-specific categorizer.
> I like the word "indeterminate" better than "non-specific", now that
> Desmond has brought it into the jargon.

Even if you call it indeterminate, {lo} has nothing to do with his
indeterminates.

> If I say "lo [unikorn] cu klama lo zarci", you do not know what unicorn
> I am talking about (much less what store).

No, but it will be true only if there is at least one of all unicorns and
a market that are {klama}-related.

If you say   [a] cu klama [b]

where [a] and [b] are Desmond's indeterminates, ([a] is of type unicorn,
[b] of type market) then you can say that the statement is acceptable
but it doesn't have a truth value (unlike the Lojban statement) unless
you decide to give values to those indeterminates. Just like a = b does
not have a truth value.

> You only know that it is
> veridically a member of the class of unicorns, if such a member exists.
> "Unicorn" is serving as a 'type' for the sumti.
>
> Change the example from "lo [unikorn]" to "lo nanmu" and you may have
> the same situation.


I'm not sure I can follow what you say next. Changing to {lo nanmu}:

        lo nanmu cu klama lo zarci

> If you require that "lo zarci" refer to a specific
> one store that merely hasn't been specified, rather than 'any' store in
> your "xe'e" sense,

Yes, that's what I require for the sentence to be true.

> then you do not know the truth value of the sentence
> unless you can say that for EVERY possible value of "lo zarci", it is
> true that at least one man goes there.

What? For AT LEAST ONE zarci. Definitely I don't require it for every zarci.

> Alternatively, you can say that (assuming that the sets exist), the
> statement means merely
>
> "su'oda poi nanmu ku'o su'ode poi zarci zo'u da klama de"
> There exists at least one man X, and at least one market Y such that:  X
> goes to Y

That's exactly what it means, yes.

> But this really doesn't track with your "mamta" example above.  Yeah, it
> works since there is indeed at least one human that is your mother, but
> there really is a little implication of specificity or you wouldn't
> argue so comfortably that it is true.

Again, what?

>
> But how do you evaluate a story:
>
> "lo nanmu cu klama co jibni lo ninmu .i le nanmu cu cpedu le ninmu lenu
> kansa klama le dansu nunsalci"
>
> "A man goes near a woman.  And the man asks the woman to
> accompanyingly-go to the dance-celebration."
>
> Now what do you make of this?  Is the first sentence inherently true
> because at least one man has at some time gone near a woman?

Yes. If you are telling a story, you would probably want to use {le} there,
but {lo} is ok too.

> If so, it
> makes "lo" rather useless.

Why?

> I think that there may indeed be a 'typing'
> going on here, and the 2nd sentence "le" is an instantiation that tells
> us that the first sentence WAS referring to a specific man and a
> specific woman.

Pragmatically, yes. Other than that, there's nothing to tell you that
the man you are talking about is the one that makes the first sentence true.

> hypothetical mode:
>
> IFF Desmond's concept turns out to be what we (want to) mean by "lo"


No, please no. It makes things very unintuitive. That's my opinion anyway.

> (and by extension "loi" and "lo'i", though the standard quantification
> values attached to those may tend to make them a little less
> problematical), would this resolve the issues of "I need a box"?

Maybe. But it would create infinitely many more problems.

> What
> new issues can you see it introducing?  In particular, what actual
> Lojban usages that you can think of are incorrect and which are
> uncertain.

Probably every single sentence that used {lo} so far would mean
something different than intended.

Jorge