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Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
Martin Bays, On 29/10/2011 18:28:
* Saturday, 2011-10-29 at 17:05 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:
Martin Bays, On 29/10/2011 01:14:
I'm saying that the definition of {cinfo} is
"x1 is a lion/[lioness] of species/breed x2", and that I wouldn't want
to change this.
We're all saying this much.
If you were actually saying that Lion is a lion, it would be the meaning
of English we were disagreeing on! So I hope you aren't.
Given that English allows us to speak of "a lion" that you would consider to not count as a lion, and to speak of "an Obama" that you would not consider to count as an Obama, we do seem now to be disagreeing about the meaning of English. I had formerly thought that you were seeking to define Lojban predicates such as cinfo on the basis of a particular model of the universe, rather than on the basis of English, and hence that the semantics of English were irrelevant to the discussion.
We disagree on whether the definition of lionhood excludes certain
individuative criteria.
More fundamentally, I think we disagree on whether {ko'a cinfo} means
(for ko'a an individual) "ko'a has lionhood" or "ko'a is a lion".
I don't think that's what we disagree on. Maybe we disagree on whether there's a difference between "ko'a has lionhood" and "ko'a is a lion", for I don't see a clear difference.
If I understand you correctly, that does mean that I am saying what you
say I'm saying.
I was making a sincere attempt to attribute to you a view I believe
you do hold, but I don't think it follows from your belief that
{cinfo} means"x1 is a lion/[lioness] of species/breed x2".
In my (perhaps naive) understanding of english, the use of "a" in
"a lion" invokes some individuation of precisely the kind we seem to be
arguing about; i.e. we can't use "a lion" to refer to an entity which
can also be seen as comprising multiple lions (Banach-Tarski aside,
please).
Well, obviously there are generics like "a lion has four legs", and then there are things like "We were talking about a lion. Which lion? The lion in my garden each day.", and then we can say "an angry lion erased from my consciousness a calm lion" (as opposed to "an angry lion erased itself from my consciousness") in situations where you would count the two lions as the same lion.
I have no hesitation in believing that English works xorxesianly -- indeed, the reason I always supported xorxesianism is that it reflects the way English works. (I don't venture to generalize beyond English, because English is the only language I know better than badly.)
> OK. So in John's lion-hunting context, after his having shot the left
> lion, you'd say "lo pa cinfo noi zu'a se cmene zo samantas.uu cu zu'a
> morsi gi'e ku'i ri'u pu'o zi gunta .ii mi'o"?
>
> I can see that John might be dangerously confused. Perhaps there are
> sound evolutionary reasons for natural language making sharper
> distinctions between lions and Lion than you seem to want lojban to?
Speakers should make the distinctions when necessary, using the
resources of the language. When being approached by lions, it is
especially important to know their spetial distribution. In other
contexts, such as the daily lion, there is no such need to agonize
over whether they're all the same lion. For other predicates, e.g.
Barbie ("We both got given Barbie for Christmas") and Father Christmas
("F. C. has a white beard"), identity criteria are more insensitive to
spatial distribution.
I still don't think I understand your setup. Do you have different
entities to handle these different cases? e.g. would you actually use
multiple lions in the lion-hunting example, rather than Lion doing
different things in different places? But use Lion for the daily lion?
Yes. For Gricean reasons, rather than truth-conditional necessity.
OK. And the "individuative cmavo" discussed below would be how you
disambiguate between these two meanings of {cinfo}? Or have you some
other way to refer explicitly to Lion rather than some lions, or vice
versa?
It'd be the individuative cmavo. I guess the one you call "Lion" is used where X is a lion and Y is a lion but you don't know (or don't say) whether X = Y. And the one you'd want is where the speaker is certain how many distinct lions there are, based on maximizing spatially distinct lions, minimizing temporally distinct lions, and whichever other criteria deal with cases like "the lion(s) we each spoke about" (where we each speak about one lion) and so forth.
So your individuative cmavo would be something like classifiers?
I guess so, but I hesitate to venture to delineate a scheme whose
primary purpose is to satisfy your requirements, given that you have
a better understanding of your requirements than I do.
Well... you seem to acknowledge that it's useful to be able to talk
about lions as well as Lion; so if we are to have e.g. {lo cinfo} often
refer to Lion, wouldn't it be rather helpful to have an explicit way to
go from Lion to lions?
Provided that the default is to allow speakers to be vague and unspecified, then yes I think it would be good to have ways of being explicit about criteria for individuation.I don't see there being a simple dichotomy between kinds and nonkinds, though.
For example, let's consider x1 of {ckape}. I assume you would say that
lions, Lion and Perilousness all ckape.
Is Lion what you get when X is a lion and Y is a lion but you don't know (or don't say) whether X = Y?
And is Perilousness the potential harmer, or the situation of there being danger, or the property of being a potential harmer, or what?
OK, so it seems we now have three proposed methods of handling this kind
of situation:
(i) JC's bunches approach - there are only lions and other perilous
objects; Lion and Perilousness are maximal(ish?) bunches of such;
disambiguation is through the tense system (e.g. {lo ka'e ckape},
maybe)
(ii) Using abstractions - e.g. Perilousness doesn't ckape, but it does
ka ckape; Lion doesn't cinfo, but it does ka cinfo and it does
ckape; lions cinfo and ckape.
(iii) (being my probably inaccurate understanding of your suggestion)
Like (ii) but the other way up: Lion is basic; an individuating
cmavo gets us down to lions. Similarly Perilousness is basic, and
(multiple? repeated?) cmavo can get us down either to Lion or all
the way to lions. Sometimes (i.e. in some contexts) only Lion
cinfos, while sometimes it's lions which cinfo; both ckape when
they're around, but sometimes only Perilousness ckapes (presumably
only when neither Lion nor any lions are around, although
individuating cmavo can summon them into being).
But am I understanding correctly that you actually favour:
(iv) Like (iii) but without the individuating cmavo - we can glork from
context whether we're talking about lions or Lion or Perilousness.
?
Let me leave Perilousness to one side, since I'm not sure what it means here.
I'm not advocating (ii).
If the difference between (i), (iii) and (iv) is that in (i) disambiguation is by tense, in (iii) disambiguation is by special individuating cmavo, and in (iv) disambiguation is solely by glorking, then I reject (i) because I don't see how it could work, and favour (iii) if only because you have thought deeply about (iv) and find it unsatisfactory. If i were to consider only my needs and not yours, (iv) would suffice.
--And.
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