Re: [lojban] Re: mi kakne lo bajra

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 7:17:05 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: mi kakne lo bajra

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 12:56 AM, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> But the event of wearing a hat is abstract in Lojban terminology

I know, that's why I say Lojban terminology is so haywired sometimes.

**I don't see the problem here; "abstract term" means one whose selbri (God I 
hate Lb terminology) is constructed using cmavo of a certain kind (or array of 
kinds).

> (and semantics, since it is a type or some such notion)

So when I say:

     mi viska lo nu do dasni lo mapku

is there some problem? Is that a different sense of "viska" from:

     mi viska lo mapku

**No, but it is looking at a different object, in this case allowing for 
delusions or or other sorts of misseeings.  If you're sure your perception there 
is veridical (love slipping that word in from time to time) then go ahead and 
raise.  You still may be wrong, of course, but that was always a risk. 'nu' is 
probably not the best choice for an abstractor here.

>   I don't get your point: how do you make use of the possession of an object 
>(unless this is a very misleading way of saying you make use of the object).

It's just as misleading/non-misleading as specifying that you want to
possess it, or that you need to possess it, instead of just saying
that you want it or need it. It is for the most part unnecessarily
overprecise.

**These are not misleading, they are just different (like the 'viska' case 
above).  In the case of 'pilno', which is about as close to a zero probability 
of problems of this sort as you can get, it is hard to figure out what the 
sentence with an event term as object might mean (without a lot of context: "He 
used his having a hammer as an excuse for going back to the workroom", say). 
 With 'djica' or 'netci' it is easier to see the point.

>  The problem, to come back to it is, is whether the referent of a term is in 
>the domain of discourse or not,  In a lot of cases involving terms that 
>construct out of human intentions and emotions and cognitions, the answer is 
>that typically the term we put in that place is not, in fact referring to 
>something in the domain of discourse, and should be marked accordingly.

So you claim, but it doesn't sound right to me. It seems to me that
saying something about something is enough to put it in the domain of
discourse.

**And so it is, which is why we carefully don't say anything about stuff that is 
not there to be talked about, but rather bury them away in other worlds 
altogether.  Abstractors and (real) modals (including tenses) have the effect of 
removing reference from the present domain to another (or, as Frege insisted, of 
moving from present reference to present sense, which ultimately comes to the 
same thing).  

> To distinguish it from the occasional cases where it does so refer, if for 
>nothing else.  Lojban decided a long time ago to deal with this problem not by 
>marking certain places as being peculiar with respect to some rules but by using 
>certain term types that disallowed raising.  We have fairly frequently failed to 
>follow those plans
>  with various weird results, but the plan is still a good one.

The plan was never a coherent one, and the implementation was a total
disaster, since many people are now convinced that "mi djica ta" for
"I want that" is incorrect Lojban.

**Well, it is true that the need to be careful in these places has been 
overstressed, with the results you report, that doesn't mean the plan was a bad 
one nor incoherent.  It may be that the choice of abstractors to use was wrong 
(I personally think it all comes down to propositions, since I am reasonably 
sure they exist and am much less sure about any of the others).  Of course, 'mi 
djica ta' and even 'mi djjica lo mapku' are perfectly fine Lojban, but they have 
consequences, one of which is the need to be able at least in principle to point 
out the object intended.  Clearly there is no problem with pointing out ta; you 
just did.  lo mapku may be somewhat harder but also may be possible (although a 
purist might insist that you use 'le' in that case).

>  People who say 'mi djicu lo plise' should be prepared to answer, "Which one?" 
>and, if they cannot in principle even do that, then their claim is false.

If I tell you I want an apple, I have to tell you which apple or else
my claim is false, but if I tell you I want the having of apples, I
don't need to tell you which having of apples and my claim is still
true? That's not coherent.

**Well, yes.  Because having an apple is a type not a token (well, it is a token 
of having, but that is another story).  Grammatically simple expressions are 
often logically (semantically) complex.  So "I want an apple" comes out as 
something like "I have a felt lack such that both if I were to have (or whatever 
predicate you want here) an apple, that lack would be filled and if that lack 
were to be filled, I would have an apple"  Now, if I know that there is an apple 
in this world that does for both these buried quantifiers, I can pop back.  If 
not, the quantifiers stay buried under at least two world shifts.


      

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