Re: [lojban] xorlo and masses

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:

* Friday, 2011-08-12 at 07:32 -0700 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:

> First of all. get rid of the word "mass"; it has been used -- and
> misused -- for too many things in Logjam history to be useful now.

Fine. I'll just use 'gunma', and hope that isn't controversial too.

> Now, then, a brief summary of xorlo: 'lo broda' refers to some broda
> (contextually specified) or, equivalently, to a whole composed of
> those some broda (a Lesniewskian set -- very different from the usual
> sets). The _expression_ gives no indication whether these broda are
> acting individually or collectively with respect to their
> predicate(s), hence the propriety of conjoining an apparently
> collective use with an apparently distributive one. To be explicitly
> collective, one must say 'loi broda'; to be explicitly distributive
> say either 'PA lo broda' or 'lu'a lo broda'. The referents of all
> these expressions are the same: some brodas or a whole consisting of
> those some brodas. They differ only in how these broda (or this
> whole) relates to its predicate(s).

So in all cases, the referents of {lo/loi broda} are entities which
individually broda?

No, just loi. lo is completely non specific.

This appears to be in contradiction with the BPFK section definition of
loi:

loi [PA] broda - lo gunma be lo [PA] broda

(under the interpretation I understand you as giving, the individual
referents of the left hand side would generally not gunma, while those
of the right hand side must)

Or am I misinterpreting something?

> ( 'lo'i broda' refers always to a set of broda and so interacts only
> in a set like way -- with not particular connection to what its
> members happen to be.) This theory harmonizes most of what CLL and its
> addenda say about 'lo' and masses and a few other terms; what is left
> out is best considered not to apply any more.

This harmony remains tantalisingly out of earshot.

Martin

> ----- Original Message ----.
> From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Thu, August 11, 2011 5:11:34 AM
> Subject: [lojban] xorlo and masses
>
> That is, I know, the kind of subject line to make those who lived
> through the gadri wars shudder.
>
> But my question is simple and hopefully simply resolved.
>
> >From the gadri BPFK section:
>
> """
> An individual can be anything, including a group, a set, a
> substance, a number, etc. {lo broda} can refer to one or
> more individuals. {lo'i broda} can refer only to those
> individuals that are sets. {loi broda} can refer only to
> those individuals that are groups ('masses').
> """
>
> >From the Indirect Referers section
>
> """
> lu'a (LAhE)
> Individual. (Member.) 1. It converts a sumti into
> another sumti. The converted sumti points to the
> referents of the unconverted sumti, removing any
> indication of collectivization if there was any.
> """
>
>
> These seem to indicate conflicting semantics for handling of masses.
>
> (I'll use 'mass' in the CLL sense, intended to be synonymous with
> 'gunma'/'group'/'collective'/'plurality')
>
> The first appears to indicate that masses are still first-class
> entities, such that e.g. in {lo tadni cu sruri le dinju}, the referents
> of {lo tadni} are masses of students, not individual students. In
> particular, it is reasonable for that {lo tadni} to have just one
> referent.
>
> The second appears to indicate that sumti can sometimes be 'flagged' as
> being interpreted collectively - the referents are the same whether it
> is so flagged or not, but if it is so flagged then a bridi involving it
> is understood to hold of the mass consisting of the referents, rather
> than distributively of the referents themselves.
>
> Admittedly, these two interpretations are not literally inconsistent - you
> *could* have first-class masses *and* mass-flagging, it would just be
> very confusing. Is this really what was intended?
>
> Things are confused even furtherly by the example given on the gadri
> page of:
>
> lo tadni cu sruri le dinju gi'e krixa
> Students are surrounding the building and yelling.
>
> , which seems (in the context of the use of this kind of example in the
> lingustics literature) to suggest that the referents of {lo tadni} are
> acting as a mass in the first bridi and distributively in the second.
> Which would need the distributivity flag to have third value of
> "ambiguous", or something like that...
>
>
> Personally, I think the first interpretation (first-class masses which
> gadri can return) fits best with the rest of lojban - although it leaves
> open the question of how to specify that you *don't* want masses as the
> referents when using gadri... {ro lo tadni} is no good, as it could be
> interpreted as quantifying over some (perhaps just 1) masses which are
> the referents of {lo tadni}. {lo tadni poi na gunma su'o tadni} is the
> best I can come up with.
>
> Hoping for clarification,
>
> Martin
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
> To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.