Re: bits & pieces to Jorge on quantifiers

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge:
> > > If I can say veridically that {lo rorci be lo jbobau cu smoka lo
> > > mapni} then descriptions are utterly useless.
> > Why? This is a question of how we conceptualize the world. There is
> > no objectivity. I wouldn't conceptualize the world in such a way as
> > to consider that sentence accurate, but it is possible to do so.
> Well, then you can conceptualize the world to make any sentence
> accurate.

No.

> You can conceptualize it to make sense of {ta blanu} when pointing
> to a red thing. On hearing that, I would think that either you don't
> understand Lojban or there's something wrong with the eyes of one of
> us, but I would probably not consider that you are conceptualizing
> the world differently.

I agree.

> Isn't language a convention for conceptualizing the world?

Yes.

> We can't use the same language for long and pretend to understand each
> other if we are conceptualizing the world very differently. We'd be
> speaking different languages.

I agree.

For something to be blanu its colour must be within a fuzzily defined
region of colour space. For something to be mass, it should have
properties like a lack of intrinsic boundaries, internal homogeneity,
and a number of other factors most illuminatingly discussed, I think,
in Langacker's (1986) "Nouns and verbs" in _Language_. So if you
refer to a mass of Lojbab, J.Caesar and my sock, you're claiming that
the referent has those properties of masshood. A strange claim, of course.
And then if you succeed in finding a way in which L, J.C. and my sock
form a mass (e.g. on the grounds of their constituting the examplage
in our discussion) then you may claim that it satisfies the criteria
for being a rorci be lo jbobau. While that doesn't strike me as a
likely move, I cannot see that there are clear reasons for saying such
a claim would be false.

> > > I don't care about truth conditions. Let's just consider meaning.
> > > Does {lo djacu} admit your sock as a referent?
> > No, I don't think so. I don't think what I've been saying predicts
> > it could.
> Let me rephrase the question a little. Do you agree that {lo'i solri
> be le terdi bei lo'e remna} is a singleton set?

Sort of. If you allow for fuzzy categories then the cardinality is
going to be fuzzy too. If, say, the moon is 1% a member of {lohi
solri be fe loe remna} then the cardinality is less obviously 1.

> Is {le solri ku joi le lunra} a (the) member of that set?

[Draws breath for foolhardy/foolish answer...]

Yes and no; or rather: sort of. It satisfies some but not all
criteria for being a member of that set. It is sort-of a member
of that set.

> > > {lei ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno} means
> > > something very different than {le ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno}.
> > Yes it does, although I think they can both describe the same state
> > of affairs (with from one to a zillion acts of carrying).
> I don't see that. Assuming we are talking about a single piano, then
> the sentence with {lei} describes one act of carrying, and the one
> with {le} describes exactly three acts, one by each man. I don't see
> how either may describe a zillion acts. (You might describe the same
> act as a zillion acts, but then you have to use some other bridi.)

The {lei} version says the man-age is carrier of the piano - doesn't
specify number of events.
The {le} version says man1 is carrier of the p, man2 is, and man3 is.
Again, no specification of the number of events.

To disambiguate, you need {fau}, e.g. {fau pa da lei ci nanmu cu bevri...}
{le ci nanmu cu bevri fau pa da ...}.

> I'm still not sure about the meaning of "bounded".

"Doesn't extend as far as the mind's eye can see; the mind's eye
can see the edges of it."

> > > > In work on English I have recognized
> > > >   (i) unbounded entities
> > > >   (ii) extrinsically bounded entities (e.g. {re lo djacu})
> > > >   (iii) intrinsically bounded entities (e.g. {lo gerku})
> > > > (in English at least these behave differently from each other in
> > > > certain respects).
> > {lo} is sometimes (ii) and sometimes (iii),
> What is {lo blanu}? Couldn't it even be (1)?

Yes. You're right. So {lo} is unspecified for (i-iii). The sense of the
selbri determines which of (i-iii) the referent is.

> > > But in Lojban we can only distinguish (with gadri, at any rate)
> > > individuals and masses (which are also individuals in themselves,
> > > but they are masses as seen from the point of view of the components).
> > Of course there are two relevant types of gadri; but I'm suggesting
> > they don't naturally or consistently capture a genuine semantic
> > distinction.
> To me, the difference between {lei ci nanmu} and {le ci nanmu} is
> quite genuine, and one that seems worth marking. Given that
> there are three men in front of us, we may refer to them in two
> different ways, taking them as three or as one entity.

Yes, you've made me rethink the matter. {lVi} is "not intrinsically
bounded", overriding the sense of the selbri, while {lV} is unspecified
as to boundedness, conforming to whatever boundedness is dictated by
the selbri. So there is a genuine semantic distinction consistently
captured by the gadri opposition.

> > depending on the sense of the gismu (e.g. djacu versus gerku}.
> > {loi} is always unspecified between (i) and (ii).
> How about something like {lei ci nanmu cu zmadu le pipno
> le ka junta ke'a}. Why is {le pipno} any more intrinsically
> bounded than {lei ci nanmu}?

If X is intrinsically bounded:
  - if you divide an X into portions each portion is not an X
  - X often has internal structure
  - X often has inherent shape
  - X is often internally heterogeneous
  - if you put an X next to another X they remain distinct

{le pipno has all these features}. {lei ci nanmu} doesn't, or
needn't.

> The difference between {lo djacu} and {lo gerku} is more artificial
> (from a Lojbanic point of view) given that there are things like
> {lo blanu} that can be like both. In English we have nouns, and these
> are properties of nouns.

English is actually quite similar. There are count nouns and mass nouns,
identifiable both by their meaning and by their syntactic behaviour.
If some instances of a given lexeme are count nouns, then other instances
of that lexeme are mass nouns, and vice versa. Referents of mass nouns
are not intrinsically bounded, so these are like {loi}. Referents of
count nouns are intrinsically bounded, so there is no Lojban analogue
of count nouns, and nor is there an English analogue of {lo}.

> In Lojban there are no nouns as such, so we can only refer to things
> using the predicates that those things satisfy. The same object might
> end up satisfying predicates that would correspond to all your three
> categories. That would mean that your categories are not really
> categories of objects but rather of referents.

Aren't all categories in semantics categories of referents rather than
objects?

> > > > {loi broda} at present can be (i) or (ii). I think that may be
> > > > unhealthy.
> > > It can't be (ii). You can take fractions of a mass, but not multiples.
> > On what grounds do you say this? I of course don't agree, but maybe
> > you have compelling arguments.
> I have no compelling arguments, only that {piro loi broda} is the mass
> of all broda and therefore you can't have more than one of it.
> {re loi broda} would be two masses of all broda, and I don't know what
> that would be.

Well that's fairly compelling. But can you have {re lei broda}?
Ah, you will say no, because that means "the mass of all broda I have
in mind" rather than "a certain mass of broda".

How do you get "some mass of broda" and "a certain mass of broda"?

> Well, I know that what I say is inconsistent with other things that
> have been said, especially with the "any property of a component is a
> property of the mass" bit. But also what you say is inconsistent with
> other things that have been said.

That's for sure.

> Obviously, the things that have been said are inconsistent with each
> other. Your idea of mass is incompatible with fractionators.

It's incompatible with *implicit* fractionators.

> My idea was formed from trying to make sense of the fractionators,
> which requires that the inheritance of all properties be eschewed.

I know. If I was trying to make sense of current official situation
I'd probably agree with you all the way.

> Which one is more useful I don't know. I find that what you could
> say with yours is mostly covered by {lo'e}, but I don't know.

I want {lei} to mean "a certain (thing which I describe as a) mass of",
and {loi} to mean "some mass of". Then it's not covered by {loe}.
I don't know how to say these things otherwise.

> > > > > > > pimu lei remna poi nenri le kumfa cu banzu le nu ky culno ry
> > > > > > > Half of the people in the room are enough to fill it.
> > > > > > Well, maybe, in which case {pimu lo remna poi nenri le kumfa
> > > > > > cu banzu le nu ky culno ry} or {pimu la ron poi nenri le kumfa
> > > > > > cu banzu le nu ky culno ry} should be equally okay.
> > > > > How do you say that the people fill
> > > > > the room without implying that each of them does?
> > > > {pi mu loi remna} - an extrinsically bounded entity.
> > > But that's what I said in the first place!
> > > (Well, I used {lei remna}, otherwise you get half of all humanity.)
> > I know. Did I say somewhere I thought that was wrong? I may well have
> > done, thinking foggily.
> You said that it meant that {pimu la ron poi nenri le kumfa cu banzu
> le nu ky culno ry} should be equally okay.

Well I think they are. I don't know what the parser says, but they make
equal sense to me.

---
And