* Monday, 2011-10-24 at 19:05 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >
> > The issue was simply whether, in {lo vofli cipnralbatrossa cu xajmi}, we
> > have
> > (a) a bunch of things, which is at some time a bunch of flying
> > albatrosses
> > or (b) a bunch of things each of which are at some time flying
> > albatrosses.
>
> I thought you also mentioned (c) a bunch of things such that at some
> time for all of them, each of them is a flying albatross.
I'm assuming that "is a flying albatross" is distributive, so (c) is the
same as (a).
> But if you are going to introduce time in a sentence that doesn't
> necessarily bring it up, shouldn't you also consider space?
Quite probably so, yes; I was using 'time' as simplifying shorthand for
'world'. It would indeed be nice if we could consider space to be just
another co-ordinate involved in specifying a world.
But actually, there's a problem, even if we consider only time. Assuming
flying albatrosses remain albatrosses when they're not flying, in {lo
vofli cipnrxalbatrosi cu broda} (thanks for the fu'ivla correction,
btw), if the lo term gets as referents the bunch of all things which
have ever been flying albatrosses, that's just the bunch of all things
which have ever been albatrosses.
So unless we introduce stages, which causes the same kinds of problems
that introducing kinds does, this "maximal bunch" approach to kinds
seems doomed.
Curses.
OK, so I'm back to {lo ka vofli cipnrxalbatrosi cu xajmi}.
Martin
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