Re: [lojban] xorlo and masses

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

'gunma
 seems to have inherited most of the problems of "mass", so I'd avoid using tha, 
too, until its meaning gets sorted out eventually.
I don't quite see your problem with "loi [PA] broda   -   lo gunma be lo [PA] 
broda".  On the left, we have a whole whose parts are things that broda.  The 
things are individuals, although they may broda either collectively or 
distributively.  On the right you have some thing(s, but the intention is that 
there be only one, I suppose).that are wholes whose parts are parts also of lo 
broda.  The problem (I guess) is that, in fact, lo broda and loi broda are not 
different things, they are wholes with exactly the same members in a given 
context (I hope the "whole" terminology helps, xorxes would say that they just 
are the same things).  The difference is simply that in using 'loi' we specify 
that the things are acting collectively, whereas, in using 'lo', we do not 
commit to either type of action ('PA lo broda' and 'lu'a lo broda; specify 
distributed activity, each individual doing its own thing).  Viewed as a bunch 
of individuals, all of these are the same.  

 

----- Original Message ----
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, August 12, 2011 10:29:17 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] xorlo and masses

* 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?

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
> 
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