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



* Wednesday, 2011-10-26 at 14:43 -0400 - Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>:

> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:42 AM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> > * 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.
> >
> > 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 this question is really one of whether "lo vofli cipnrxalbatrosi"
> defaults in meaning to "lo cipnrxalbatrosi poi ca'a vofli"  or
> "lo cipnrxalbatrosi poi pu'i/ka'e vofli"?  I think that's pretty much left
> up to context and either could be correct (for all we know, it could even
> refer to an albatross that's on Qantas).

Right, but the issue then is that *every* albatross ka'e vofli, and
almost every albatross pu'i vofli... so this doesn't help us express
things like "flying albatrosses look funny".

In reality, that's probably a bad example, because it's more of
a generic predication than a pure-kind predication - so it should maybe
just be {so'e [ka'e] cipnrxalbatrosi poi [ca da] vofli cu [ca da]
xajmi}, or similar.

So maybe I was prematurely pessimistic when I said:

> > 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}.

. Needs more thought, perhaps.

Martin

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