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Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
[1] So you would have the referent of {zo'e} be a Skolem function, which returns
a different referent for each value of {da}, which seems to get the right
result, the same effect could be done by either taking the bunch of possible x2s
and picking the right one from context, including especially the choice of x1
(remember, I am not convinced that {zo'e] makes any sense at all or which of its
several senses actually works or is at work in a given case, so problems here
are not a major issue for me). C, then, is the range of that function (which
then is just the set of possible referents for {zo'e}). I just don't see the
gain in throwing in another quantifier, especially given the problem with
shifting that result.
[2] So C somehow is narrowed down to a particular bunch of things by the broader
context and the right thing for a given value of {da} is then selected from this
but I am unsure what the intermediate selection does that cannot be done
directly. I suppose in {roda klama zo'e}, C is immediately restricted to
destinations, i.e., places, and the correct one picked out the choice of {da}
instantiation. This all seems to be the same thing, differently worded and
differently segmented, but the same procedure (assuming -- as I do not -- that
{zo'e} can be understood in this rather tortuous way).
[3] It is not clear that you have fewer superfluous entities than xorxes, just
different ones (or, at least, different ways of expressing the move that seems
to me to be direct).
I would think that the way to deal with bare plurals in English (etc.) would be
to use plurals (or Lesniewskian sets, if your are hung up that way). I dson't
see how talking about things other than bears, even if you somehow get back to
them eventually from these new critters, is at all clarifying to a simple
plural. I can say that bears shit in the woods meaningfully and truthfully
because, by and large, bears do shit in the woods: at least a subjective
statistic and maybe even backed up by objective ones. What do generics add?
Even if you go off into subjunctives, it is still bears, not bearkind you are
dealing with. Bearkind don't shit anywhere. Or Mr. Bear.
How is all that stuff about the number of unicorns indicating the number of
unicorn horns an improvement on saying "Wherever there are unicorns there are
unicorn horns" just thusly? Note, that, if this means that because unicorns are
in the domain of discourse, then unicorns are also does not apply, so the
principle is, in fact, not valid at the meta level, just in very worlds.
Widespread creatures are numerous (collective property) and occur in lots of
places (disjunctive), rare creatures are few and far between. No worlds, no
tenses -- even spatial ones, just ordinary predicates.
[4] I'll be happy to see whatever you have; I can use a refresher. [Later:
looking at what you have sente suggests that you have gone beyond the Montague
grammar to parsers and the like in languages I don't know. I would rather just
see the Montague grammar for now, not the stuff built on it yet.]
----- Original Message ----
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, September 14, 2011 6:20:07 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural
variable
* Wednesday, 2011-09-14 at 12:05 -0400 - John E. Clifford
<kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> [1] quantified variables are variables, they do not refer to anything
> but can be replaced under certain condition by referring expression.
> {zo'e} is officially a referring expression, hence not a variable;
> what it refers to is both vague and ambiguous (the obvious thing, it
> is unimportant what). To be sure, at some levels of analysis, it is
> useful to take referring expression as universal scope particular
> quantifiers, but that doesn't operate here. The thing about referring
> expressions is that they pass through quantifiers undisturbed, whereas
> bound variables, eve with tight scope, do not in general.
Yes, but we seem to want the latter. In {ro da klama zo'e}, the intended
referents of {zo'e} will depend on the x1. xorxes would fix this with
kinds/generics; I'd prefer the straightforward solution of making the
zo'e scope within the universal quantifier.
> [...]
> tI am still not clear what C is.
Perhaps it would clarify if I re-express it in a purely singularist way:
I'm suggesting we analyse {zo'e} as introducing, at tightest scope, an
existential quantifier "\exists x \in C", where the C is a contextually
determined set. So e.g.
{zo'e broda ro da} -> \forall y. \exists x\in C_y. broda(x,y)
I confused things slightly by working with a plural semantics.
> [2] Assuming "the sum of all chihuahuas" means a bunch of chihuahuas
> that gets them all in, how does this focus the referent of the
> pronoun to some chihuahuas in a way that just having chihuahuas in
> the domain does not?
Is this now clear? If context indicates that C is the set of all
chihuahuas, the zo'e means "whatever chihuahuas" - which is somewhere in
between "whatever" (C=universe) and "Chichi" (C={Chichi}).
> Sent from my iPad
> [3] What is more natural than having a bunch of things? What seems
> unnatural to ( Nominalist) me is having in addition a generic
> chihuahua (and maybe chihuahua kind besides).
I would prefer to do without them. Xorxes thinks this
impractical/undesirable.
> So, reading between the lines of your description of a kind, brodakind
> is pretty much brodaness, the function from possible wolds to the
> ( set of) brodas in that world (tense and the like merely deal with
> certain regular complexities in the system of worlds). But properties
> don't love people -- or hate them.
Yes. Chierchia (and, basically, Carlson) deal with this by
type-shifting. If you use a kind as an argument in a predicate which
expects mundane individuals, to make the types work out either an
existential or generic-universal quantifier over instances of the kind
is introduced (which depends on the sentence). They use this to explain
bare plurals in english, and corresponding phenomena in other natural
languages.
> {pavyseljirna} btw, vs is not legal medial.
(thanks)
> But talking about unicorns does not mean that unicorn horn have to be
> in the universe of discourse. Using metrology here means breaking up
> bunches of thing in the universe, not breaking up individual things in
> the universe.
I wasn't saying it was true, just an example of a statement we can make
using kinds (or properties).
> We can talk about widespread and rare creatures without tenses, even
> without location tenses.
Without using kinds? How?
> I'm not sure which notation you are using, but I suppose that "cup" is
> the avatar counting function for situations.
Sounds right. I took it from Chierchia - \cup K is the map from
situations to the sum of all instances of the kind K in the situation.
> [4] hideosities from Richard's classes 50 years or so ago but not
> successfully resolved so far as I can tell: tanru, compound predicates
> (without transformations), ditto arguments and argument sequences,
> "modals", UI, {du'u}, and on and on.
Yes... many of these I'd expect to just ignore for now, or implement
hackily and approximately.
> Can I see what you have so far; I haven't mucked in this midden for
> years and it would be interesting to see what progress there has been.
Little if any progress beyond previous attempts, I suspect. But I'll
send you my work-in-progress anyway. (In a separate mail; it isn't
anything like ready for public release)
> [...]
> Bunches operate intensionally like anything else (except, as a bow to
> xorxes, they aren't things). A bunch of broda can be anything from
> a single broda to all the broda ever on all possible worlds (including
> impossible situations). You do have to indicate, somehow, what your
> range is (and thus specify your universe of discourse a bit).
Let me ponder this.
Martin
> On Sep 14, 2011, at 0:13, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
>
> > * Monday, 2011-09-12 at 19:52 -0700 - 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).
> >
> > How does that differ from using a tight-scope existential quantifier?
> >
> >> 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.
> >
> > Well, the common understanding seems to be that it can't.
> > (If the common understander is reading and disagrees, please speak)
> >
> > e.g.
> > http://dag.github.com/cll/7/7/
> > is reasonably clear in saying that omitted places should be considered
> > filled with {zo'e}s.
> >
> >> I'm not sure what C is (context?),
> >
> > C is determined by context, hence the choice of letter. It's just
> > some things.
> >
> >> 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.)
> >
> > Is this different from existentially quantifying over the universe?
> >
> >> [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?
> >
> > Yes, that was the idea.
> >
> >> And , if so, how would the sum all chihuahuas help do that, since that
> >> seems a rather big range (whatever it is, btw).
> >
> > This would handle the case of context indicating that the {zo'e} should
> > mean "some chihuahuas".
> >
> >> [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).
> >
> > Maybe (i.e. depending on what exactly you mean) this can handle kinds,
> > but I don't think it would be very natural.
> >
> > Following Chierchia98 once more, we can consider the kind Broda to be
> > a reification of the map from situations (which for simplicity, ignoring
> > tense issues, we can identify these with possible worlds in Kripke
> > semantics) to the (sum of the) actual brodas in that situation.
> >
> > So we can say things like "unicorns necessitate unicorn horns" and mean
> > that any situation with a unicorn also has a unicorn horn
> > \forall s. ( \cup(Unicorn)(s) != 0 -> \cup(UnicornHorn)(s) != 0 ) .
> >
> > (I know... unicorns again... sorry for lack of imagination)
> >
> > (if we add time and space information to situations, we could also talk
> > about a kind being 'rare' or 'widespread')
> >
> > Does this mean something about {lo pavseljirna} and {lo pavseljirna
> > jirna} where these refer to bunches? If the bunch refered to by {lo
> > pavseljirna} consists of all unicorns in all possible worlds, and comes
> > with the data as to which unicorns are in which possible world, then
> > yes. But that's a rather specific bunch, and a lot of information to be
> > carrying around.
> >
> > In reality, I think I'd prefer to translate the above sense of "unicorns
> > necessitate unicorns horns" into lojban by something like
> > {lo ka pavseljirna cu za'e zatni'i lo ka pavseljirna jirna}.
> >
> >> 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.
> >
> > Yes, but only the easy bits (those corresponding to FOL) thus far. I got
> > stuck on handling {lo} and {zo'e}...
> >
> > What kind of paradigm-blowing complexities do you have in mind?
> >
> >> (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?)
> >
> > I meant "polysemy" to indicate a discrete ambiguity, and "vague
> > ambiguity" a continuous one. I think the first at least might be a term
> > of art (but not my 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.
> >
> > So I think the main thing I don't understand about your understanding of
> > {lo} is how these bunches work wrt intension, i.e. how they interact
> > with possible worlds and tense.
> >
> >> [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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