Re: [lojban] "lo no"

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

I agree with the gist of tijlan's post, but I'd like to add some observations.

On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 7:56 AM, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> lo gerku = da poi gerku

I prefer: lo gerku = zo'e noi gerku

The reason is that "da" is meaningless until it is bound by a
quantifier, and assuming a default "su'o" has the problem that
quantifiers in Lojban are usually taken to bind singular variables
(i.e. they are distributive).

> ci lo gerku = ci da poi gerku
> no lo gerku = no da poi gerku

Here I prefer:

ci lo gerku = ci da poi me lo gerku
no lo gerku = no da poi me lo gerku

This is just an application of a more general rule: PA (sumti) = PA da
poi me (sumti)

Now, it is generally true that the selbri "me lo broda" can be reduced
to plain "broda" (as far as the x1 is concerned). But the exception is
precisely in the cases when there are no broda in the universe of
discourse. Since there are no broda in those cases, the sumti "lo
broda" can't refer to anything, but the selbri "broda" could perhaps
still have meaning. This won't affect tijlan's point though.

I would accept that:

ci gerku = ci da poi gerku
no gerku = no da poi gerku

since these follow a different paradigm, with no referring term being involved.

> lo ci gerku = da poi gerku je cimei
> lo no gerku = da poi gerku je nomei

lo ci gerku = zo'e noi gerku gi'e cimei
lo no gerku = zo'e noi gerku gi'e nomei

> Every sentence is syntactically valid, but the last one is logically
> questionable. You are yet to explain how exactly one could sensibly
> mean to refer to something which are both dogs and no dogs without a
> contradiction.

He is not referring to anything with "lo no gerku". "nomei" is not
true of anything, just as "su'omei" is true of anything at all.

He accepts terms that don't refer to anything, and arbitrarily assigns
a truth value of "True" to any predication involving those terms. But
those sentences don't really mean anything. He is extracting meaning
not from what the sentence states but from the fact that he is using a
non-referring term.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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