Re: [lojban] Masses

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

Yes, we don't have to say exactly what a broda is (any brodacea of the genus 
brobroda, ...) but I still think it has to insist that the referent of {lo 
broda} be broda.  This allows for some disagreement about just what counts, but, 
for each side, the answer excludes certain [whatever]s from being lo broda.  
"The boys moved the piano" can be pretty indefinite about how that was done, who 
hefted what, and so on, maybe even including some who didn't lift a finger, but 
the boys had better be boys in some fairly clear sense (which may include girls 
and adults, of course, depending).  





----- Original Message ----
From: And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, May 17, 2011 10:13:41 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Masses

Yes, there is this question that you raise, which might be answered by 
philosophers of mereology or by the wisdom of lojban-speaking crowds. But the 
specification of Lojban shouldn't rely on the question having been answered. To 
give another example, the Lojban specification points from {gerku} to the 
encyclopedia entry for dogs, but Lojban doesn't have to be responsible for 
stating the content of that encyolopedia entry (which is rather a job for 
zoologists, or folk crowds).

--And.

John E Clifford, On 17/05/2011 15:58:
> Hmmm!  This seems to be part and parcel of the issue of who all gets the 
credit
> or blame.  To take the team example again, when the team wins (or loses), does
> that include the manager, the bat boy, the groundskeeper, etc.?  Since 
managers
> regularly get credit or blame, they seem to be part of the teams, yet there is
> an obvious sense in which they are not (usually).  xorxes wants armies to be
> more than soldiers, to include in materiel, soldiers' tools  -- are these
> different meanings of "army" or different restrictions on what to count in 
when
> making a particular claim?  And does it make a difference?  I think (on first 
>or
> early second thought) that it does: there has to be some limit on what {lo
> broda} allows in, else we can have lo broda consisting of many things that are
> not broda and only one that is.  This seems to make it essentially le broda 
and
> deny veridicality, the distinguishing mark of {lo} constructions.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Tue, May 17, 2011 8:27:13 AM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] Masses
>
> Jorge Llambías, On 15/05/2011 22:00:
>> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 5:33 PM, John E Clifford<kali9putra@yahoo.com>   
>wrote:
>>>
>>>    Since the distributive sense can always be expressed by the use
>>> of external quantifiers, there was no need for a special form for that. So
> the
>>> unquantified form could be used for the collective sense.  However, it was
>>> thought (and practice shows this was a correct thought), that there was also
>>> needed a neutral expression, unmarked for either collective or distributive.
>>
>> Also, if "collective" means "all together" and "distributive" means
>> "one by one" or "individually", there are a lot of other options in
>> between: in pairs, in threes, some in pairs and some individually, and
>> so on. "All together" and "one by one" are just the two extremes. If
>> we only have forms for the extremes we are left with no form for all
>> the intermediate cases, and if we do have a form that doesn't
>> distinguish between all the intermediate possibilities there is no
>> reason to exclude one of the extremes from that neutral form.
>
> This is a good point, but if you agree that "the team" is subject to same 
range
> of interpretations on the collective--distributive scale as "the team members"
> is (e.g. "the team each have red hair"), then I think the appropriate 
>conclusion
> is (a) that when an individual is construed as a collectivity it may receive
> wholly or partly distributive readings (quantifying over members or subsets of
> the collectivity), and (b) individual-construable-as-collectivity is the 
>default
> (most underspecified) interpretation.
>
> To try to state essentially the same point in a completely different way: just
> as brodeing holds of the referentage of "lo broda" to any degree on the
> coll--dist scale, so does "brodaing". On the plural reference model, "lo 
broda"
> has many referents, and it needn't be the case that each is brode; my point it
> that it also needn't be the case that each is broda.
>
> I'm not sure if you already agree with this point.
>
> --And.
>

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