* Friday, 2011-09-09 at 19:59 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >
> > But with your zo'e, mixed interpretations are necessary, e.g. to explain
> > {ro prenu cu se prami zo'e noi prenu}. So I think this is no different
> > from the "some dogs love every human" example. Do you think you can use
> > {su'o gerku} there, despite the "chihuauas" and "German shephards"
> > interpretation? If so, why?
>
> Why not? Both interpretations are available for the English sentence,
> it's not so surprizing that they also be available for the Lojban
> version.
I think we may have got lost somewhere.
The context here was meant to be that we are assuming that everyone is
loved by some chihuaua (in the sense
FA x:person. EX y:chihuaua. loves(y,x)),
and everyone is loved by some German shephard.
It wouldn't follow in english that some dog loves everyone, nor that
some dogs love everyone, nor that some kinds of dogs love everyone, nor
anything else I can think of along the same lines.
But it would follow that
{ro prenu cu se prami zo'e noi tci,uaua} (1),
and, unless I'm misunderstanding, your interpretation of that zo'e
makes the following true (in domains of discourse where (1) holds):
{da poi tci,uaua cu prami ro prenu} (2).
I don't think this has an analogue in english, nor in any other rarbau
I know.
> If you object to the interpretation that could get instantiated by
> chihuahuas then your objection must be either that chihuahuas in
> general just are not available as the value of a variable, no matter
> what the context, or that they are available in certain contexts but
> not as something that satisfies the x1 of gerku or the x1 or prami. So
> your objection is either ontological or it has to do with the
> semantics of "gerku" or "prami". In either case it is not about logic
> or logical form.
I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to have as a frequent element of
the domain of discourse an individual "chihuahuas" which gerkus and can
be a value of {da}... but this is kind of a separate issue. Here I'm
just saying that there shouldn't be one which gerkus and also pramis
everything which any chihuahua pramis.
> >> Just "things": "I love buying things, but then I never know where to
> >> put them."
> >
> > But the 'them' doesn't mean 'things in general', it specifically refers
> > to those bought in the first clause.
>
> In my analysis the domain of discourse here has only four (relevant)
> members: I, things, my buying things, and the indirect question (I may
> also need there to be several other members, each of which is a place,
> for the makau to make sense, even though they are not directly
> mentioned).
But the english says more than can be seen by interpreting in this
domain of discourse.
> > So...
>
> So again, I think your objection is either ontological: there's no
> such thing as "things" that could possibly be the value of a variable,
> no matter what the context, or your objection is about the semantics
> of either "buy" or "put" or both: these predicates won't admit such a
> value as their second argument.
>
> If the objection is that the statement is too coarse grained for your
> taste, that you prefer statements that are more precisely nuanced,
> that's fine, but that doesn't mean that the coarse grained statements
> violate any logical rule.
No, my objection is that the english pronoun "them" has a more
complicated anaphoric meaning which is being lost by working only with
the generic "things".
Martin
Attachment:
pgpSWDQJNxPFf.pgp
Description: PGP signature