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

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

Lying on abed of pain, I have been thinking about this a bit and want to revise my position somewhat.  
About {zi'o}, there are two possible ways of reading, say, {zi'o klama}. One as a relation among places, paths and modes of transportation that hold of a quartet of such just in case some traveler take the path from the second place to the first along the path using the transportation mode. The second is much the same except that the traveller does not enter in, we just have a relation among the quartets with no further indication of why they are in that relation.  The second view, while formally possible, is surely not what is intended; why would we use {klama} if the things related were never part of a trip?  But, as a result, {zi'o} becomes equivalent to your friend, the short-scope particular quantifier.
So, I drop that suggestion.  Which brings us back to {zo'e} and unfilled places.  I take it as a given that {zo'e} is a constant ( at each use -- not an ideal situation)and never a variable.  The
appearance that it is sometimes a variable comes from the fact that unfilled places clearly are variables sometimes, combined with the claim that every unfilled space is a covert occurrence of {zo'e}.  This last now seems to me to just be flat wrong, as the examples bandied about here seem clearly to prove. On the other hand, some unfilled spaces are clearly covert {zo'e} or some constant, at least.  The constant seems to be subsumable under the "thing I have in mind" reading, whether obvious anaphora, obvious deixis, or less obvious personal whim (cf. the definitions of descriptors).  This leaves a totally unacceptable situation, at least for a logical language, whose transformations are supposed to be on the surface: an unfilled space is four ways ambiguous.  It seems the only logically sensible out is to allow unfilled spaces only for variables (the general case) and require something more specific for the rest,preferably the appropriate pronouns in those case and {zo'e} on the last, though I suppose that in most cases {zo'e} could do for all three.
So, back to the question case: the appropriate negative responses to the question { xu do klama le zarci} are {na}(or should that be{naku}?), {na go'i}, {mi na klama zy} ( or some more official pronoun), and the basic {mi na klama le zarci}, with {mi na klama zo'e} as a marginal possibility.
Sent from my 

On Oct 6, 2011, at 20:32, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:

> * Thursday, 2011-10-06 at 17:21 -0400 - John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> 
>> Which is why I added "or would have I intended if he had thought of
>> it". So you are saying he might have intended a variable.
> 
> Ah, I was reading your "something" in "something I have in mind (or
> would have, if I thought about it)" as being an ordinary something (or
> somethings, presumably), i.e. just some element (possibly plural) of thee. 
> universe.
> 
> Having it be a variable is roughly right, yes. This can't be dealt with
> at a textual level - simply substituting {da xi ci ze} for {zo'e} -
> because {zo'e ro da broda} should be the same as {ro da zo'u zo'e da
> broda}. Hence the "close-scoping (plural) existential with glorked
> domain" suggestion made in this thread.
> 
> Do you still think that suggestion is wrong/bad in some way?
> 
>> I personally think it is {zi'o}, but that probably has problems
>> too--though I can't think of one.
> 
> My main problem with that is just the icky ambiguity it would introduce.
> In principle, {zi'o klama} is an entirely new 4-place predicate, whose
> semantics are related to those of {klama} but not in any very
> predictable way. So if an omitted place can be {zi'o}, understanding the
> possible meanings of any expression would, in principle, involve
> understanding many such zi'o-derived selbri.
> 
> Martin
> 
>> On Oct 6, 2011, at 15:35, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> * Thursday, 2011-10-06 at 11:10 -0700 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
>>>> Well, I am not sure just what the all the complications that MB and
>>>> xorxes have stirred up are, but, so far as I can follow it, the
>>>> position seems to be that {zo'e} stands for something I have in mind
>>>> (or would have, if I thought about it).  It is a constant (a different
>>>> one at each occurrence -- an ongoing problem in Lojban), not
>>>> a variable and not under any quantifier.  Then {lo broda} is that with
>>>> the additional information that the something is in some way, broda.
>>>> So, it can refer to anything from a single broda to all brodas, past,
>>>> present, future, and possible but not actualized.  This referent can
>>>> then be said to have a further property in a variety of ways, mainly
>>>> to be grokked from context, since the ways to specify them are not ywr
>>>> well-established.  My understanding is that MB disagrees with this
>>>> specification of {zo'e} and xorxes with the extrapolation to the
>>>> referent, but juast why is hard to see.
>>> 
>>> Because it doesn't seem to explain the behaviour of {zo'e} with respect
>>> to negation and quantifiers - at least if we accept that an unfilled
>>> place is implicitly filled with a {zo'e}, and if we don't use kinds.
>>> 
>>> To dig out the old example, in
>>> A: xu do pu klama lo zarci
>>> B: mi na klama
>>> , and assuming that there's only one market in question, B probably
>>> intends to refer to that market by the implicit {zo'e} in {klama}'s x2.
>>> But B is unlikely to mean only to mean that for some specific route,
>>> B didn't go to the market by that route. B probably means that B didn't
>>> go to the market via *any* route, or means of transport.
>>> 
>>> Your explanation of {zo'e} seems not to deal with that.

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