Re: bits & pieces to Jorge on quantifiers

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

Jorge:
> Yes, but that was not my point. Suppose I point to a red thing and
> say {ta blanu}. Now, I'm conceptualizing that red thing as part of a
> mass that contains also some blue things. Since I'm pointing at part
> of the mass, I'm pointing at the mass, and since part of the
> mass is blue, then the mass is blue. Which would mean that I'm
> perfectly right in saying {ta blanu} when I point to a red thing.
> I don't think that's how masses should work.

You point to a mass, ta, which is partly red and partly blue, and
say {ta blanu}. That seems fairly reasonable to me. If the referent
of {ta} is not the mass but only the red thing, then {ta blanu} is
false.

> > 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)
> Right, that makes sense to me: {la lojbab joi la iulius kaesar
> joi le do smoka cu se casnu mi'o}
> > then you may claim that it satisfies the criteria
> > for being a rorci be lo jbobau.
> No! Just because we talked about it, and a component of it is a rorci,
> doesn't in any sense make it a rorci.

By "you may claim that" I meant not that the mass necesssarily is a
rorci, but that the claim is sufficiently plausible for it to be worth
considering. One would have to deliberate further on what are the
necessary properties of rorcihood, in order to decide whether the mass
has them. Without thinking it through, my intuition is that the mass
is a rorci in a marginal kind of way.

> > 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.
> Because the mass entity {le se casnu be mi'o} is not a rorci. Only some
> component of it is. Properties are not automatically inherited by the
> mass from the components.

Yes, properties aren't automatically inherited. But I fail to see
why this mass isn't a rorci. Some component of it is, and I can't
tell one component from another, so it looks to me like the mass is
a rorci, assuming that it satisifies the properties of rorcihood.

> > > 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.
> What is the cardinality of a set with infinitely (uncountably many,
> in fact) sort-of members?

Don't ask me. That's one for the logicians and fuzzicians.

> > > > > {lei ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno} means
> > > > > something very different than {le ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno}.
> > The {lei} version says the man-age is carrier of the piano - doesn't
> > specify number of events.
> We are using "event" differently. I meant "relationship". The bridi
> describes only one single relationship.
> > The {le} version says man1 is carrier of the p, man2 is, and man3 is.
> > Again, no specification of the number of events.
> I meant that the bridi describes three relationships. I was using "event"
> to mean "claimed relationship". I'm not sure what you are using it for.

I of course agree that the number of relationships/predications is
as you say. I'm using event to mean ... well - "event"... for instance
the things that you count if you say "carry twice", or the things that
have ZAhO profiles.

> > How do you get "some mass of broda" and "a certain mass of broda"?
> {loi broda} and {lei broda}.
> Just like {pisu'o lo'i broda} is a subset of the set of all broda
> (and therefore it is "some set of broda") so is {pisu'o loi broda} a
> submass of the mass of all broda (thus "some mass of broda").
> > 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}.
> That's what they mean! How come we are arguing? :)

Hmm. So "all of some mass of broda" is "pi ro pi suo loi broda", and
"a portion of a certain mass of broda" is "pi suo pi ro lei broda"?
And "two masses of broda" is "re ... pi suo loi broda" and "a certain
two masses of broda" is "re ... pi ro lei broda"? And "two sets of
broda" is "re ... pi suo lohi broda" and "a certain two sets of broda"
is "re ... pi ro lehi broda"? Those are wrong syntactically, but
not, I conclude, semantically.

> But notice that if {loi tanxe} means "some mass of boxes", then you
> can't conclude, from knowing that I need some mass of boxes and
> that there is some mass of boxes in the other room, that the mass
> of boxes in the other room is the one that I need.

Good. That's how it should be. And it should contrast with "the mass of
all boxes", and "all of the mass of all boxes". If I need all of the
mass of all boxes then I'm trying to corner the box market; the boxage
in the next room is a portion of what I need. If I need the mass of all
boxes, then if there's some of that boxage in the next room than it's
what I need.

---
And