Re: [lojban] Explicit non-restriction

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 8:09 AM, Daniel Brockman <dbrockman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No, because everything is a referent of {ro da} (by definition).

Yes, but.

Given "ro" as a singular quantifier, everything takes turns being the
value of "da", one thing at a time.

If you don't have aggregates as things themselves in your universe of
discourse, then that puts some limitations to the kinds of claims you
can make about "everything", you can only make claims that apply to
each thing individually. (Of course aggregates are cheap to add, so
that isn't necessarily a big limitation.)

The proposed plural quantifier "ro'oi" takes care of that by allowing
the bound variable to take any number of values at a time (without
having to create an aggregate of them as one thing). So "ro'oi da zo'u
da broda" says not only that every one thing brodas but also every two
things broda, every three things broda, every four things broda, and
so on.

>> What if the answer is {no da}?
>
> You can still answer {no da}.

Right, the answer to a question is never limited by the form of the
question. How to answer a question is always a matter of pragmatics.
The form of the question can only suggest the form of the answer, but
if one needs to change the form in order to be truthful, informative,
clear and relevant, one should not hesitate to do so. What matters to
the person asking something is that you tell them what they want to
know, not that you fill in a form properly (at least if they are a
person and not a machine or a bureaucrat).

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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