Re: [lojban] "lo no"

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

On 20 May 2011 13:41, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > no da broda --> ro da na'e broda
>> > ro da na broda -> su'o da na'e broda
>>
>>
>> "no da broda" has the implicit bridi affirmer, "ja'a"; why would this
>> binary NA become a non-binary (scalar) NAhE rather than the binary
>> opposite ("na")? Consider the following non-metaphoric pair:
>>
>> no tanjo cu [ja'a] glare --> ro tanjo cu na'e glare
>>
>
>
>   It wouldn't.  It really is naku broda.  But since it seemed obvious from
> your original transformations you wouldn't understand the subtle distinction
> between "na" and "naku", I gave you the logical equivalent:  "There is no X
> that is broda" <--> "all X are non-broda"

(I may not be fully aware of the distinction you make between "na" and
"naku" for this particular case, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't
understand your explanation of it.)

The English expression "There is no ..." can lead to the following confusion:

X that is broda (term) = zo'e noi ke'a broda = lo broda
no X that is broda (term) = no lo broda
There is no X that is broda. (proposition) = no lo broda cu zasti

all X (term) = ro da
All X are non-broda. (proposition) = ro da na'e broda

no lo broda cu zasti =(?) ro da na'e broda

The problem is the ambiguous predicate "there is (no)". Presumably you
meant "does not exit":

X that is broda does not exist. = lo broda na zasti

But that still doesn't seem to warrant its equation to "ro da na'e
broda", since we can refer to and talk about non-existing broda1 (e.g.
a flying teapot, a pink unicorn, Donald Duck, etc.) which must be
included in "ro da".


>> My point, anyway, was that "nothing is/does ..." (saying of nothing)
>> may not be more basic and universal a form than "everything/anything
>> is/does ..." (saying of something). Every expression with "nothing"
>> seems to be convertible into an expression with "everything"; and when
>> "everything" is not entirely accurate as in "I do not see everything
>> (while not completely blind)", the same inaccuracy can be found in "I
>> see nothing (while not completely blind)". So I wonder if any
>> statement with "nothing" has any truth independent of its "everything"
>> counterpart. If it isn't so independent, we can't really say of
>> nothing in its own right (although we can talk about the concept of
>> the *set* which has nothing, i.e. the set which doesn't have
>> everything).
>
>   Please, please, please do not confuse natlangs with predicate logic.

I don't. In fact, I meant to suggest we have to be careful when using
such natlang expressions as "there is no ..." and "nothing is ..." in
a discussion of quantification, because these idioms don't always
reflect logical principles. It may be common for speakers of certain
natlangs to use forms of expression that appear to say of nothing, and
I suspect such forms may logically not be as fundamental as (and
independent from) forms that say of something.


> Nothing means nothing, everything/anything means everything/anything.

To the extent at least that English "nothing" can mean a non-nothing,
I don't see how your definition would be satisfactory for logical
uses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing#Language_and_logic
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/
http://www.nothingnesstheory.com/

"Nothing" in logic seems to be best defined as a pseudo-term with no
object to which it refers. And zero object is necessarily nomei. This
just goes back to my initial point: "lo broda", which refers to broda1
(something), is not compatible with an inner "no", which refers to
nomei1 (nothing).


>> >   The zasni gerna cenba vreji page is NOT xorlo.  They are only xorxes'
>> > additional proposed expansions to the grammar.
>>
>> I know. I meant the xorlo definition of "lo broda", to which I was
>> comparing your "lo no broda". You implied that the basis for "nonai"
>> is unsatisfactory because it's not canonical, so I wondered whether
>> your own reasoning for "lo no broda" could be considered any more
>> satisfactory by the same standard you implicitly invoked.
>
>   Umm.. okay, let's try CLL Chapter 6.7: "This quantifier is called an
> ``inner quantifier'', and its meaning is quite different: it tells the
> listener how many objects the description selbri characterizes. "  And this
> (although partially  negated by xorlo): "Using exact numbers as inner
> quantifiers in lo-series descriptions is dangerous, because you are stating
> that exactly that many things exist which really fit the description"  So if
> nothing does, "no" is a perfectly valid inner qualifier.

Except that the quote is about a description sumti formed with "le", not "lo".


>   Yes, obviously what it means as an exact number in a given context would
> be contextually dependent. I have no argument/problem with that.  But using
> "nonai" where "za'uno" or "su'o" is more appropriate is like saying that one
> should use "ro" when "su'o" is called for if you only have one object in
> that context.  Can you not see how that would lead to confusion?

I wouldn't want "nonai" where "za'uno" or "su'o" is clearly more
appropriate. I'm talking about the implicit inner PA of "lo broda", if
any, and xorlo has no provision for "su'o" or any other known PA as an
appropriate default inner quantifier. You asked me to answer to "lo xo
broda", so I invented a PA which isn't "su'o" etc. but would fit into
"xo".


>> We are talking about whether or not it's possible for "lo broda" to
>> have "no" as its inner quantifier (to be nomei). That possibility
>> isn't acknowledged by xorlo, according to which the referent of "lo
>> broda" (the x1 of selbri in general) is to be considered more than
>> nothing. This entails that any inner quantifier of "lo broda" be other
>> than "no" by default. There is this certain default sense that the
>> inner PA can't be "no", and that mathematically points to "za'uno" or
>> "su'o". Should either of these be the default inner quantifier, then?
>> I'm not sure, insofar as I respect the xorlo-proposer's opinion.
>
>   But I don't see that indicated anywhere, implicitly or explicitly, in the
> xorlo proposal.  I guess that's my main problem.  Saying that "lo" with no
> inner qualifier means that there is always at least one is exactly the same
> as saying that the default inner qualifier is "su'o", which xorlo explicitly
> says is not the case.  Help me out, here.

I don't think xorlo says the first. As far as I can tell, "lo broda"
is as much "lo su'o broda" as "lo gerku" is "lo gerku noi danlu", and
as much not "lo no broda" as "lo gerku" isn't "lo gerku noi nardanlu".
We could have "noi danlu" as the default clause for "lo gerku", but we
need not. We could have "su'o" as the default inner qualifier for "lo
broda", but we need not.


>   Thanks for the pointer to the article, although I'm not sure that it
> applies here.    In fact, why can't I say, "ro lo ci vinji ka'e vofli" but
> "no lo pimu vinji ka'e vofli"?

"lo pimu vinji" means "zo'e noi vinji gi'e pimu mei". It suffers the
same problem as of "lo no vinji": there can be no airplane whose
cardinality is less than one. If less-than-one 'airplane' could be an
airplane, exactly-one airplane would have meant multiple airplanes,
which would be nonsense.


>  Now, I grant you, if I wanted to talk about
> more than one "half-airplane", I'd have to phrase it differently. Without
> using xadba (simply because it's non-extensible to other-than-halves), my
> first impulse would be "no lo ci lo pimu vinji ka'e vofli", but that would
> violate the principle of inner qualifiers needing to be greater than or
> equal to outer ones, wouldn't it?  So, I'm not sure. (Of course, that same
> issue obtains if you claim the answer is "no lo ci lo pimu lo vinji ka'e
> vofli". Or doesn't it?)

It would first violate the principles of reference that I explained
above. We would want "pimu" as an outer rather than inner.

However, any quantification over piPA which itself quantifies
something of an unspecified quantity, is bound to be vague:

ci lo pimu lo vinji
3 of 0.5 (50%, half) of airplane

If "lo panono vinji", the above quantification would mean a quantity
equivalent to 150 airplanes; if "lo pa vinji", a quantity equivalent
to 3 blocks of 'half-airplane'. So we would need to specify the inner
as "pa" in order for the outer "pimu" to unambiguously mean "a half of
an airplane".

I think "lo pimu lo pa vinji" can have a cardinality independent of
"lo pa vinji". If I cut and get a half of airplane-A which is an
instance of "lo pa vinji", that wouldn't mean I couldn't have another
half from airplane-B which still is an instance of "lo pa vinji". "pa"
in "lo pimu lo pa vinji" seems to say more of "an airplane which
something is a half of, that I'm talking about", than "the one
airplane that I'm talking about, which something is a half of":

lo pimu lo pa vinji = zo'e noi me lo pimu lo pa vinji (rather than: lo
pa vinji poi zo'e me lo pimu ke'a)

So, outer-quantifying it with "ci" seems ok:

ci lo pimu lo pa vinji = ci da poi me lo pimu lo pa vinji (rather
than: lo pa vinji poi ci da me lo pimu ke'a)

(By the way, I wonder if "ci da poi me ..." would mean the same as "ci
zo'e noi me ...".)


mu'o

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