* Sunday, 2011-09-18 at 19:16 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 6:33 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >
> > Consider:
> >
> > A: xu do pu klama su'o friko gugde
> > B1: mi pu na klama [zo'e]
> > B2: mi pu klama [zo'e]
> >
> > To get the right readings without an intermediate C, and without using
> > kinds, we'd have to interpret the first as being the sum of all African
> > countries, and the second as being a particular country which witnesses
> > the existential.
> >
> > With an intermediate C, we can give both {zo'e}s the same
> > interpretation.
>
> But then what do you do with:
>
> C: xu do pu klama ro friko gugde
> D1: mi na pu klama [zo'e]
> D2: mi pu klama [zo'e]
>
> Assuming that we agree D1 should be the negation of C, and D2 its
> affirmation, you can't get that with a close scope existential.
Sure you can - in both cases, C would be the singleton with element the
sum of all African countries.
That depends on the distributivity of klama, which is something I just
complained about... so perhaps the exchange you should be challenging me
with is
C': xu ro lo nanmu cu bevri ko'a
D1': [zo'e] na bevri ko'a
D2': [zo'e] bevri ko'a
In this case, I don't see any way for either of {zo'e}s to be
interpreted in a way which explicitly repeats C' or its negation.
I'd prefer to say that that's just how zo'e is, if the alternative is
allowing it to introduce a universal quantifier.
> I'm happier with "zo'e" being "lo friko gugde" in all these cases.
Do you mean by this the Kind? Kinds were intended, at least when talking
to you, to be allowed as elements of C - so that's covered.
> > Moreover, the Cless interpretation of B1 relied on the distributivity of
> > klama's x2. How, without using a C and without using kinds, could we
> > handle {lo nanmu na bevri lo ti jubme}, if it's intended to mean that no
> > group consisting of men carries the table?
>
> I think (smething like) kinds is the best way to go.
We can use kinds, but we lose a lot of information when we do so.
> > {zo'e} and {lo} are different, I think, as can be observed by their
> > behaviour under negation.
>
> My observation is that "zo'e" and "lo" behave just as "mi" and "ta"
> under negation. "lo nanmu na bevri lo vi jubme" is what I would say
> when I want to contrast it with "lo nanmu cu bevri lo va sfofa" or
> with "lo ninmu cu bevri lo vi jubme", or with "lo nanmu cu renro lo vi
> jubme", for example.
Would you accept that "Lions are ruining my garden" is a reasonable
possible translation of {lo cinfo cu ca daspo lo mi purdi}?
Would you agree with Chierchia (Ch98 p.364) that "Lions are ruining my
garden" means that there exist some lions which are ruining my garden?
If so - that's the kind of existential quantification which we don't see
with {mi} or {ti}. {lo cinfo cu ca na daspa lo mi purdi} has to have as
as a meaning that no lions are destroying my garden.
Could it be that our only point of disagreement here is that you'd
prefer to leave {lo cinfo} as a Kind, and have a later stage of
processing do the conversion to (in this case) an existential, while I'm
suggesting we skip the Kind stage?
Actually that can't quite be the only point of disagreement, as I'd want
an existential or generic reading of {lo} to be allowed in cases when
there's also a pure-Kind reading - e.g. "I don't like lions" vs
"I don't like some lions" vs "I don't like generic lions", all meaning
quite different things; if {lo cinfo} in {mi na nelci lo cinfo} returned
a Kind, it seems we'd have no way of accessing the latter two meanings,
since the first would take priority.
Let me make that a question: do you consider "there are some lions such
that I don't like them" to be an interpretation of {mi na nelci lo
cinfo}? If so, how do you obtain it?
> > Can I get your opinion on the "Nirvana Conjecture"?
> >
> > I think that if we ignore anaphora, which could really be horribly
> > complicated, we should be in agreement that it should be true. Are we?
>
> > > *the Nirvana Conjecture:
> > > When interpreting lojban, other rules reduce to the problem of
> > > determining the truth value in a given possible world of a bridi
> > > whose sumti are all either elements of the universe or are {zo'e}
> > > expressions (or are anaphora to the latter, but let's ignore that).
> > > So reordering, we have selbri(c_1,...,c_n,zo'e_1,...,zo'e_m).
>
> I would agree, except I don't make any distinction between the c_'s
> and the zo'e_'s, so I just end up with: "When interpreting lojban,
> other rules reduce to the problem of determining the truth value in a
> given possible world of a bridi whose sumti are all elements of the
> universe." So your conjecture is true for me too, just a slightly
> misleading way of putting it.
Cool.
> (Of course in some cases the reduction might not be actually doable,
> since it might involve an infinite number of bridi, say for "ro rarna
> namcu cu zmadu su'o rarna namcu".)
Natch. Actually doable in finite models, though.
Martin
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