[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

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

Martin Bays, On 25/10/2011 03:15:

* Tuesday, 2011-10-25 at 02:07 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:


Martin Bays, On 25/10/2011 01:25:

* Tuesday, 2011-10-25 at 00:45 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:


Martin Bays, On 24/10/2011 19:46:

* Monday, 2011-10-24 at 19:22 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:


Martin Bays, On 24/10/2011 16:14:

* Sunday, 2011-10-23 at 18:57 -0400 - John E. Clifford<kali9putra@yahoo.com>:

On kinds, my position is just that kinds (if you want to use that
word) are just biggest bunches viewed in certain ways and so call for
nothing other than things of the ordinary sort.


I seem to be in agreement. But I guess no-one else is, so far.


I don't think me and xorxes disagree with you and John. If there is
disagreement, it is over how many are in the biggest bunches. You,
I gather, would say that there is only one possible cardinality for
the biggest bunch of broda, whereas xorxes and I would say that the
universe, or universe of discourse, can be understood in infinitely
many different ways, such that across these different ways the
cardinality for the biggest bunch of broda varies from one to
infinity. I think xorxes and me would also say that this holds also of
referents of {la}, and also pronouns like {mi, do}, and that these
biggest bunches are treated like individuals.


This last - reification of bunches as individuals - is the only point of
disagreement I would consider key.


Would you say that the referents of la&   do are always treated like
individuals? Or that when the referents are individuals they're
treated as individuals and when the referents are bunches they're
treated as bunches? If the latter, then we might still agree.


I think the referent of any term, {la foob} and {do} included, is
a bunch. There are minimal ("atomic") bunches, i.e. ones with no
subbunches other than the bunch itself - we can call these individuals.
We can say that a bunch is a bunch of the individuals which are its
minimal subbunches.


Encouragingly, then, I think we're in agreement here.


Surely some mistake!

So is this all you meant by "these biggest bunches are treated like
individuals", not that you actually introduce new individuals to the (or
a second) domain to substitute for the bunches?


Yes. But:


I understand xorxes as doing the latter.


I think "introduce new individuals" is your way of describing using counting criteria that give a smaller cardinality than your favoured ones do. Count the bunch one way, you get one cardinality; count it another way, you get another cardinality, which you see as introducing new individuals.

To take an example I was thinking about because of the lion discussion below: Suppose that on each day of last week there was exactly one lion in my garden. Then, taking the week as a whole, what is the cardinality of the bunch of lions that were in my garden? You would want to say that it is some unknown number between 1 and 7, whereas xorxes and me would say it is any number between 1 and 7, tho if you know nothing more about the lion(s) then the numbers 1 & 7 would be the most natural choices.

It depends how many lions there are. You're free to think it perverse
of me to think there is only one lion (-- that all lions are one and
the same), just as I might think it is perverse of you to think there
is only one Obama (-- that all Obamas are one and the same). Given
that we may disagree how many lions and Obamas there are, it can't be
reasonable to insist on our agreeing on the number of lions and Obamas
as a prerequisite to us communicating in Lojban.


But unless you're being *really* perverse, we don't actually disagree on
how many lions there are, just on what the phrase "how many lions there
are" means.


No, I do mean we disagree on how many lions there are. Or rather, we
disagree on criteria for deciding how many lions there are --
especially on criteria for deciding whether Lion X and Lion Y are the
same or different. The disagreement isn't about what "how many lions
there are" means.


Now I'm not sure that you aren't being really perverse.

If Lion X is equal to Lion Y, then they satisfy the same predicates. So
if we can agree that Lion X is called Nigel while Lion Y is called
Samantha, or if X likes to eat gazelles while Y prefers humans, then we
must agree that there are at least two lions. Right?


So not one lion that changes its name and dietary preferences?


Now you might say that there is just one lion, Lion, which has an
instance which is called Samantha and has an instance which is
called Nigel. But if you claimed this in english, I would suggest
that you look up 'lion' in the dictionary, which will make it clear
that lions aren't things which have instances - they're things which
have claws. You are of course free to talk about this entity, but you
can't call it a lion, because it isn't. I think the same should go
for lojban and {cinfo}. It's part of the definition of the word
{cinfo} that an individual which cinfos is a lion, not something
which has instances which are lions.


Lion certainly has claws, so there's no question of calling clawless things lions.

So, you'd say that the feature [+/-can have instances] is specified in the semanticon for the lexical item? So, for example, Monday is [+can have instances], and so is Barbie (the doll), and so is cinfo-2, that means "lion that can have instances".

And likewise Obama can have instances, since the predicates that hold of Obama as he is on Monday are not those that hold of Obama as he is on Tuesday, but you allow us to treat these as the same Obama.

But actually, what you'll want to do, I think, is say that semanticon entries distinguish [+/-can have instances distributed through time] from [+/-can have instances distributed through space].

You'd need particles to mark sumti-places for this, though, since we'd want four different versions of every sumti place, for each combo of the values of the two attributes.

--And.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.