* Sunday, 2011-09-11 at 13:50 -0700 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> {zo'e} is a strange word. It is more often understood than used and,
> when used,
>
> has primarily a pragmatic function more than a semantic one. It is
> one of the stock expansions of the space left by a missing argument in
> a bridi, along with pronouns (anaphoric or deictic), regular noun
> phrases (to the same purposes as pronouns), {da} etc., and {zi'o}.
I thought the modern convention was that {zi'o} isn't allowed (see
www.lojban.org/tiki/BPFK+Section%3A+Grammatical+Pro-sumti
). Certainly it makes things more complicated if it is!
If we don't allow {zi'o}, it seems that "somethings among C", where
C is glorked from context, deals with all the expansions you mention.
i.e. {broda zo'e} -> EX X among C. broda(X)
(well... technically this doesn't handle {da}, if we consider that to be
a singular variable, but it's close to doing so)
> Its pragmatic function flows from the laws of quantity; it means "I
> don't need to tell you what", either because you already know from
> context or because it plays no role in the story being told. Each
> occurrence of it is a constant, but separate occurrences are
> independent (L3).
> In its "plays no role" role, ir does not imply that speaker knows what its
> reference is, though its context-sensitive role does.
I'd want to say that this difference is got at by the choice of C. If
C is something like the sum of all people, we effectively have the
"plays no role" idea. If C is small, like {la .alis. joi la bob.} or the
sum of all chihuahuas, we have the "you-know-what" interpretation.
> On the whole, it is an
> odd thing to have in a logical language: if something plays no role, then
> eliminate the temptation to refer to it with {zi'o}. If it is obvious
> from the context, then put it in in a minimal way. There ought not be
> two (let alone half-a-dozen) elision transformations with such varied
> meanings, without clear clues to choose among them.
Quite.
> In any case, it seems a weak base to build an explanation of {lo} on.
> To do this latest. it has to mean (as it does not obviously in the
> original situation) "what I have in mind" -- something I may at
> some point indeed have to tell you. In addition, MB, at least,
> seems to thing it should also mean some specified kind/generic: {lo
> broda} refers to brodakind, the generic broda or (as we used to say)
> Mr. Broda.
MB doesn't really think that any more. MB is (belatedly) largely
despairing of getting a neat and politically acceptable theory of {lo}.
He also thinks we should be careful to separate generic brodas, which
satisfy a predicate iff brodas tend to satisfy it, from kinds which can
have entirely different properties (like being widespread).
He never understood who Mr. Broda was meant to be.
> xorxes agrees that this is a possible reading of {lo broda} --
> without, that I can see, driving this back onto {zo'e}. All of this,
> needless to say, takes place a long way from the realm of gaps in
> a predicate place structure, and so it is hard to get a grasp on the
> arguments. Starting from the original meaning, we get the
> following
> 1E* Everybody is loved by some chihuahua (this seems to me, on the
> basis of my experiences with chihuahuas, to be absurd, but anyhow)
> 2E* Everybody is loved by the thing, which is a chihuahua.
> 3E* The thing, which is a chihuahua, loves everybody
> 4E* Some chihuahua loves everybody.
> 4>1, 1/4, 2=3, 2>1, 3>4, so 3>1, 2>4 and 1/2. 1/3, 4/2,3
> These remarks are essentially domain independent (ignoring domains
> with only one chihuahua) and I don't see any reason why one domain
> rather than another is to be chosen, unless it is to make an inference
> from 1 to 2 or 4 to 3 go through.
> But domains with only one chihuahua (assuming it has any at all) are highly
> implausible. So, I don't get what is going on here (or, rather, I do, but am
> damned if I will give it the satisfaction of actually saying it so far).
> So, to go back to basics, {lo broda} refers to a bunch of broda (no
> metaphysical commitments here, just a fac,on de parler that is easier
> to work with in some fine cases) and iis neutral with respect to how
> its referent is related to various predicates (including {broda}, in
> fact). Lojban lacks the means to say explicitly what that relation is
> in most cases, but, in any case, saying what that relation is is not
> a matter to be taken up by a gadri, but at the sumti-selbri interface,
> if at all.
I'm not sure what you mean by all that.
But my starting point here is that the sumti-selbri interface should be
simple - corresponding to elements and relations in a Kripke model (or
some more baroque structure along the same lines), as in Montague-style
formal semantics.
Are you saying that you think this simply inappropriate for lojban?
> And, it needs to be noted, the choices are not limited to
> (conjunctive) distribution and collection, but include at least
> disjunctive distribution
Why would you want to include that?
> and various statistical and quasi-statistical
> modes. There does not appear to be any reason to think that [lo
> broda] is ambiguous rather than vague (just what all did I have in
> mind)
I think that if we allow {lo broda} to be the Kind broda, this would be
polysemy rather than just vague ambiguity.
But it sounds like you don't want to?
> or that the arguments above, with {lo broda} in place of {zo'e
> noi broda} would go through unmodified (in a sensible way, rather than
> dragging in an odd domain).
I'm not sure what you mean here.
Martin
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Sun, September 11, 2011 12:46:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural
> variable
>
> [notational note: I looked again at some of the formal semantics
> literature, and it seems that 'kind' is preferred to 'generic' for the
> abstract individuals like 'chihuahuas' we've been talking about - which
> I think corresponds to what are called 'kinds' in e.g. Chierchia
> "References to Kinds across Languages" 1998; 'generic' seems to be
> reserved for the {lo'e} idea of "typical individuals". I use 'kind'
> below.]
>
> * Saturday, 2011-09-10 at 15:04 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
>
> > On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> > > * Saturday, 2011-09-10 at 10:43 -0300 - Jorge Llambías
> ><jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> > >>
> > >> 1L: ro prenu cu se prami su'o tciuaua
> > >> 1E: Everyone is loved by some chihuahua.
> > >>
> > >> 2L: ro prenu cu se prami zo'e noi tciuaua
> > >> 2E: Everyone is loved by chihuauas.
> > >>
> > >> 3L: zo'e noi tciuaua cu prami ro prenu
> > >> 3E: Chihuahuas love everyone.
> > >>
> > >> 4L: su'o tciuaua cu prami ro prenu
> > >> 4E: Some chihuahua loves everyone.
> > >>
> > >> We also have two domains of discourse:
> > >>
> > >> D1 = {lo prenu ku xi pa, lo prenu ku xi re, lo prenu ku xi ci, .., lo
> > >> tciuaua ku xi pa, lo tciuaua ku xi re, ...}
> > >> = {person_1, person_2, person_3, ...., chihuahua_1, chihuahua_2, ...}
> > >>
> > >> D2 = {lo prenu ku xi pa, lo prenu ku xi re, lo prenu ku xi ci, .., lo
> >tciuaua}
> > >> = {person_1, person_2, person_3, ...., chihuahuas}
> > >>
> > >> D1 and D2 are not the same domain. Sentences 1 and 4 "put us" in
> > >> domain D1, while sentences 2 and 3 "put us" is domain D2. By that I
> > >> mean that those are the natural domains in which to interpret those
> > >> sentences without any more context. Do we agree so far?
> > >
> > > Not entirely. I think 1E-4E could just as well be interpreted in the
> > > union D12 of D1 and D2 - because a sentence involving "some chihuahua"
> > > can't have the generic "chihuahuas" as an witness, and although
> > > (as in Carlson) a predication involving "chihuahuas" is ambiguous
> > > between being about the generic and about its
> > > manifestations/stages/whatever, that doesn't mean the domain of
> > > discourse has to be different for different interpretations.
> >
> > The English situation is additionally complicated by the
> > singular/plural morphology. You say that "some chihuahua" can't have
> > chihuahuas as a witness, even when chihuahuas are in the domain of
> > discourse. But why is that? Is it because only chihuahuas can be a
> > witness, and chihuahuas are not chihuahuas? That can't be the reason
> > because chihuahuas are indeed chihuahuas. I think it has to do with
> > something like the witness has to satisfy "...is a chihuahua", and not
> > just "...are chihuahuas". So those two are different predicates in
> > English, at least when the domain of discourse is D12. In Lojban we
> > have to make do with "tciuaua" for both.
>
> The situation in English is rather strange. The singular does indeed
> seem to refer specifically to individuals. Meanwhile the plural is
> ambiguous between pluralities of individuals and pluralities of
> strict subkinds - "some chihuahuas" can't be witnessed by the kind
> 'chihuahuas', but it *can* be witnessed by 'black chihuahuas' or 'dead
> chihuahuas'.
>
> So it seems English does differentiate between kinds and mundanes,
> but it confuses the two in plurals.
>
> This does seem to really be a binary ambiguity, though. I've tested
> a few native english speakers on the phrase "some dogs love everyone;
> indeed, chihuahuas do", and they report understanding the intention, but
> experiencing some surprise on reaching the second clause and having to
> re-evaluate the first clause to refer to kinds rather than individuals.
>
> Further evidence for its binary nature:
> *"many dogs love everyone; indeed Barney does, chihuahuas do..."
> is, I think, semantically anomalous.
>
> I don't see why we should import this ambiguity to lojban. Even apart
> from all the problems it causes which it doesn't cause in english ('I
> hate dogs' doesn't imply 'I hate one or more dogs', even when
> interpreted in the same domain of discourse), I would think it
> unlojbanic to have a binary ambiguity - especially one which can't be
> straightforwardly and clearly disambiguated.
>
> > > You seem to be saying that D12 is an intrinsically unnatural domain for
> > > lojban. That seems to be a difference from english.
> >
> > I'm saying a domain like D12 needs extra work. For example, instead of
> > a single predicate "tciuaua" we need two predicates, to go with the
> > English "... is a chihuahua" and "... are chihuahuas", which we would
> > have to use instead of the plain "tciuaua" to properly restrict the
> > quantifier.
>
> Yes, I think something like this might be the solution. We allow domains
> like D12 as a matter of course, and have a new predicate corresponding
> to the kind sense of "... are chihuahuas" - i.e. meaning "is
> a (non-strict) subkind of the kind 'chihuahuas'". It and {tciuaua} should be
> mutually exclusive.
>
> If we have a way of getting explicitly at the kind 'tciuauas', we can
> then use {klesi} to get at subkinds.
>
> So we need something corresponding to Chierchia's down operator. This
> shouldn't be {lo'e}, because that's about genericity. I'm wondering
> whether it could indeed be {lo} - using Chierchia's type-shifting (which
> is similar to Carlson's quantification over stages) to get back to
> existential quantification over instances. The crucial change from what
> you've been suggesting would be that although {lo broda cu broda} would
> hold, and {lo broda} would be referring to an individual in our
> universe, it would *not* follow that this individual satisfies the x1 of
> {broda} in the usual sense - rather, {lo broda cu broda} would transform
> by type-shifting to {su'o da poi [instance-of] lo broda cu broda} (where
> {me} might or might not work for [instance-of]).
>
> I'll read some more of Chierchia and see if I can come up with
> a proposal along these lines which would satisfy us both (and hopefully
> everyone else).
>
> > > (In fact, I *would* like to claim that 1L logically implies 2L, because
> > > I would still like to analyse {zo'e} (but not {lo}) as in the subject
> > > line of this thread. But that's beside the point.)
> >
> > So you would like to claim
> >
> > D1 |= 1L
> > implies D1 |= 2L
> >
> > and that D1 is a natural/preferred domain for 1L.
> >
> > If that's how you want to analyse "zo'e", you still have to account
> > for the "obvious" as opposed to the "irrelevant" sense of "zo'e". As
> > in:
> >
> > - xu do djica lo nu klama lo zarci
> > - u'u mi na kakne lo nu klama .i ei mi klama lo drata
> > "Do you want to come to the market?"
> > "Sorry, I can't go. I have to go somewhere else."
> >
> > That should not come out as "I can't go anywhere."
>
> Hmm. Yes, it isn't a simple existential quantifier. But how about just
> having the domain of the existential quantification be contextually
> determined - i.e. the quantifier is "for some xs such that context
> suggests I would likely be talking about xs here". The domain
> 'everything' would always be plausible; other domains like {the market
> we just mentioned} or 'all markets' would be plausible in certain
> contexts.
>
> Martin
>
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