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Re: [lojban] {le} in xorlo
Jorge Llambías, On 13/04/2010 23:01:
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 3:26 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:
Jorge Llambías, On 13/04/2010 14:25:
"ko'a poi broda" means that from the set of referents of ko'a I'm only
taking some subset, those that satisfy broda.
I can't get my head round the notion of multiple referents. To my way of
thinking, the referent is the group; if one derives from that the predicate
"x is a member of the group referred to", then certainly the poi/noi
distinction makes sense. Hence to me, KOhA poi/noi is comparable to "li mu
(ku) poi/noi" (in which perhaps more clearly the poi/noi contrast would seem
to be vacuous).
(No "ku" after "li mu", BTW. The terminator for LI is LOhO.)
While "li mu" normally has a single referent, to me "li mu poi ..."
immediately opens up the possibility of multiple fives, which the
speaker is about to restrict in some way or another. And "so'i li mu"
is grammatical, just like "many fives" is grammatical in English.
Whether or not it is sensible to speak of that or not is a different
matter, but I don't think the poi/noi contrast will depend on what is
sensible to talk about.
I'm fine with "so'i li mu" being "many fives", coerced by the quantification.
In English, one does get things like "my mother that bore me", "London that I have luved in for so many years", which don't coerce a "many mothers/Londons" interpretation. So restrictiveness needn't coerce plural interp.
Also, I can't think how the poi/noi distinction can apply when there is no predicate (selbri) present either explicitly, or implicity as when a quantifier is applied to a sumti.
Not that any of this matters much to the meaning of formal definitions of {le}, of course, since we agree that your no'oi, nonveridical noi, could be used.
Am I several steps behind where current lojbanological thinking has got to
on this? Is it written up anywhere?
Our Bible on this subject is:
http://www.amazon.com/Plural-Predication-Thomas-McKay/dp/0199278148
(or was rather, when the draft version was available online).
Not that the whole book was relevant to Lojban, but one or two
chapters were very illuminating.
Can one get emailed a copy of the draft...?
(BTW, "lo gunma be lo" for "loi" is also something of a kludge, for a
different reason, but at this point close enough for government work.)
What's the kludge? I didn't spot it...
"PA loi broda" and "PA lo gunma be lo broda" are different. (At least
with one understanding of "PA loi".)
"PA lo gunma" is ordinary quantification over groups, while "PA loi"
is quantification over the members of the group.
Yes, I see. I can't decide if the problem goes away if "loi broda" is not "lo gunma" but rather "zo'e noi ke'a gunma", since "PA zo'e noi ke'a gunma" quantifies over members of zo'e. I guess it comes down to whether "zo'e noi ke'a broda" necessarily means zo'e is a single broda (as required for "zo'e noi ke'a gunma" to work as a solution) or whether it can mean zo'e is a bunch of broda (as required, I'm fairly sure, by xorlo). Actually, those are both meanings one needs to be able to express. Maybe "zo'e noi pa gunma ne ke'a"? (The thinking in this para is low quality, so feel free to ignore it...)
Consider "They came by bus."
[...]
My (tentative) contention is that this double perspective is always
available, and if that's the case then deciding whether a given term
is specific or not is arbitrary (and the decision need not be made).
"le" could be an indication to take the specific perspective, while
"lo" remains non-commital. The non-specific perspective is achieved by
forcing an explicit quantifier.
I'm 100% in agreement on this, *except* to my thinking, you're describing
the contrast between generic and nongeneric readings. I agree that the
generic--nongeneric distinction is a matter of perspective (on the
population of the universe of discourse) (but not a matter of degree).
But, if we choose the non-generic reading, then "bus" is specific,
while if we choose the generic reading it is non-specific. So if
generic-nongeneric is just perspective, then at least in some cases
specific-nonspecific becomes just a matter of perspective as well.
The actual English example "came by bus" seems to me to demand a generic reading (because that seems to be the effect of using _bus_ without an article), but if we can use, say, "I will drink wine" as an example, then the nongeneric reading can be specific or nonspecific, "Ex, x is wine: I will drink x" being the nonspecific.
I don't mean this as a quibble about terminology, and I'm happy to switch to
whichever terms facilitate discussion, but I understand "specificity" to
mean the meaning "some particular individual/category/concept in the
universe of discourse" (where an individual can be a group) where the
individual isn't identified by name. So, as it were, one uses a zo'e'e and
then, if one wishes, adds a voi clause (or converts to a "le" phrase) or a
noi clause to assist the addressee in narrowing down the range of possible
'referents' (or even identifying the 'referent').
English "the" means, I think, "lo cmima be zo'e'e" with the added element of
meaning that the addresses can identify zo'e'e. (I had a dim recollection
that there was a BAhE for that "you know which" meaning, but apparently
not.)
"bi'u" or "bi'unai".
I'm half pleased I sort-of remembered it and half dismayed I'd sort-of forgotten it...
So, "lo cmima be zo'e'e bi'u" (if UI binds to the prev word).
I think you're looking at yet another dimension in which specific is
different from non-specific than the one I was considering. You are
looking at where the quantifier is with respect to illocutionary
force, and I'm looking at where the quantifier is with respect to
fixing the level of abstraction. (Or maybe I'm just hallucinating, I
don't feel like I have any firm grasp on specificity yet.)
This pretty much fits with how things look to me too. But to me (i.e. to my
understanding of Lojban), the level of abstraction issue doesn't have to do
with the E/O gadri contrast...
What I'm trying to say (I think) is that the level of abstraction,
which is to some extent arbitrary, can set the stage in such a way
that the issue of specificity will be affected. But I know I'm not
saying anything very convincing about it at this point.
OK, I understand your point, I think. Translated into my terms, it is that specific readings are nongeneric; so if something is viewed generically, then perforce it's not specific.
"zo'e noi ke'a broda" effectively gives you the generic reading, since there's no quantification. "PA zo'e noi ke'a broda" quantifies over tokens/members of the category. "zo'e'e", with optional noi or no'oi, gives specific, and "PA zo'e'e" quantifies over tokens/members of "zo'e'e". That seems pretty straightforward... (Admittedly, not straightforward if the goal is to paraphrase gadri using fairly common nonexperimental cmavo.)
--And.
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