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

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

Ahah! "I ate disjunctively of something you like generally" or some such.  I 
still don't get the problem, but at least what you are trying as hard as 
possible not to say is clear.




----- Original Message ----
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 16, 2011 8:56:03 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

* Sunday, 2011-10-16 at 20:49 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:

> On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 8:29 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >> The drawback of that approach is that you cannot combine predications
> >> that "resolve" differently.
> [...]
> > In any case, this drawback seems a rather small one to me.
> 
> It's impotant though. For example, compare:
> 
> (1) ca lo prulamnicte mi tavla su'o da poi do nelci ke'a
> "Last night I talked to someone you like."
> 
> (2) ca lo prulamnicte mi citka su'o da poi do nelci ke'a
> "Last night I ate something you like."
> 
> You want to accept (1) but reject (2), even though to me they have the
> exact same logical structure.

More precisely, I'd give the lojban in (2) the less likely (without
context) of the meanings of the english - the one for which a reasonable
response would be "you bastard!".

You, meanwhile, would copy to lojban this ambiguity in the english.

(You wouldn't call it an ambiguity, I know; but consider that in english
we can (mostly) disambiguate to the obvious option by making it "I ate
of something you like" (although this construction is rare in modern
english))

> You would need to say something like "ca lo prulamnicte mi citka su'o
> da poi ckaji su'o de poi do nelci ke'a" instead of (2).

That's abbreviable to
{ca lo prulamnicte mi citka su'o ckaji be su'o se nelci be do},
which isn't all that verbose.

Alternatively, how about
{ca lo prulamnicte mi ckaji citka su'o se nelci be do}
"I exemplar-ate a foodstuff you like" -> "I ate an exemplar of
a foodstuff you like" -> "I ate of a foodstuff you like"?

> Or consider:
> 
> (3) mi zukte lo se zukte be do
> "I'm doing what you are doing."
> 
> You have to say: "mi zukte lo ckaji be lo se ckaji be lo se zukte be do."

To copy the kinds approach, yes. It could be abbreviated to
{da se ckaji lo se zukte be mi .e do}, of course.

Neither this nor the kinds version really gets across the meaning of the
english, though, since there's no indication of the level of generality
of the property/kind involved. Maybe something like {mi zukte lo panra
be lo se zukte be do} is clearer.

Martin

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