Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable

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

[1]  The new definition (I don't know how much it differs from the old) seems 
defective, since {zo'e} ought not be able to stand for any variable, not just 
{no da}.  {zo'e} is a referring expression, not a variable, although what it 
refers to may be different in each occurrence (or, more often, non-occurrence).  
As for [zi'o} radically changing the meaning of a predicate, it does, but often 
in the interest of making the meaning of the predication clearer by removing 
irrelevant considerations. Note, nothing seems to say that {zi'o} can't or 
shouldn't be the reading of a blank.
I'm not sure what C is (context?), but it is pretty clear that many {zo'e} do 
not refer to things in that, since they refer to irrelevancies, by saying they 
are irrelevant (I suppose that depends on how you set up your universe, but 
anything not mentioned can be dispensed with in almost any way of doing that.)

[2] I don't follow this at all.  Why need the referent of {zo'e} be in one 
pragmatic range or the other depending on the size of the possibilities.  The 
crucial question seems to be about being grokked from context, which seems 
independent of the possible answers.  [mi klama] has a nearly infinite number of 
fill-ins for x2, yet in the given case is taken to be an "obvious" case.  Or is 
that what C does, fine down the range?  And , if so, how would the sum all 
chihuahuas help do that, since that seems a rather big range (whatever it is, 
btw).

[3] Try mine: {lo broda} refers to a bunch of broda (which bunch is contextually 
determined).  This bunch is related to a predicate in any of a variety of ways: 
collective, conjunctive, disjunctive, some intermediate forms in which 
subbunches are related in various collective ways (the individual cases being 
the bottom row of this), and various "statistical" cases (which, admittedly, 
take more work, most of which is yet to be done).  Your different sorts of 
generics/kinds seem to me to be just different ways that a bunch can satisfy a 
predicate (the "tendency" sort being of the not-quite-worked-out sort, the 
others being of more familiar sorts).  As for Mr. Broda, he has been around for 
at least thirty years, arising from a conflation of Quine and some social 
anthorpologist dealing with Trobriand Islanders, and has had more definitions 
and explanations that I can count up from memory, but basically it is something 
present wherever a broda is present doing whatever the broda does (i.e., a 
distributive predication of the bunch).


[4]  At a certain point, it became clear that all the various chats about brodas 
were talking about the same thing, so it seemed to follow that that should be 
the simple reference and all the messy details go elsewhere.  Since the details 
are about how this basic thing, lo broda, trlated to, the predicate involved, it 
seem that the place to put the info is where the two meet up.  It is not clear 
exactly how to do this, but having a different descriptor for eachcase, when 
what is being referred to is always the same, seem bad logical form.  

Have you ever tried to go a Montague grammar for even a small part of Lojban?  
The hideosities of some of the complex structures will blow your mind and you 
paradigms, although the very basic stuff is pretty straightforward.  (By the 
way, using {zi'o} for "doesn't matter" blanks makes life a lot easier).

[5] WTF is "vague ambiguity"?  ambiguity between two vague concepts?  Usually 
the two words contrast with one another.  And how is polysemy different from 
ambiguity?  (term of art?)  Of course, I take {lo broda} to refer to a bunch of 
broda, vaguely specified, perhaps.  The connection with the predicate is then 
ambiguous (as matters now stand), since there are half-a-dozen possibilities at 
least, and several of them may be plausible in a given situation.

[6] It seems the discussion arises from trying to get from {lo tciauau cu prami 
lo prenu} to something that will end up allowing an AE claim to be converted, 
salve vertitatem, into an EA claim.  Most of the steps suggested seem 
implausible at best and none of them seem to take account of the real features 
being employed, beyond the quantifiers, variously understood (no consideration 
for the type of connection to the predicates, for a main example).  The moves to 
save parts of this seem just desperate. 


----- Original Message ----
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, September 12, 2011 5:52:55 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

* 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}.

[1]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.

[2]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.

[3]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.

[4] 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)

[5]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).

[6]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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