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

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> * Saturday, 2011-11-05 at 18:18 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
>
>> I think I do get it. I just don't think it has anything to do with
>> logical structure.
>
> Well that's a matter of definitions.
>
> But note e.g. that the classic example of scope ambiguity in english,
> "someone loves everyone", can be looked at this way:
>
> A: "Someone loves everyone."
> B: "Oh yeah? Who?
> A: "Their mother."
>
> A: {su'o prenu cu prami ro prenu}
> B: {ma prami ro prenu}
> A: {lo mamta}
>
> (Lojban can't seem to get at the "their" in "their mother", but that's
> not really important)
>
> (and yes, I know by now that you would consider A to be breaking your
> favoured domain conventions by having both mundane people and Mother as
> a person in the same domain; but (a) that's an informal rule, which
> appears to be flexible (you broke it in the xabju example), and (b) it's
> not important to the essence of the example that prenu is being used on
> both sides)

I still don't think that's a matter of logical structure. It's A
tricking B into one interpretation to get an effect once the "right"
interpretation is presented. That's how many jokes work. It's more
like:

A: tu cmalu
B: ki'a .i tu bratce zdani
A: mi pu farja'o lo vorme batke

A: That's small.
B: What? That's a huge house.
A: I was pointing at the doorknob.

The logical structure of "tu cmalu" doesn't change just because B
didn't interpret correctly what A was supposedly saying.

>> Consider "a beret is a type of hat". I would say "lo ranmapku cu klesi
>> lo mapku".
>
> In reality, I'd just say {ro ranmapku cu mapku}.

What about "berets and bowler hats are different types of hats"?
"lo ranmapku jo'u lo bolmapku cu ficysi'u lo ka klesi lo mapku"

> But if you forced me to use kind terminology, I'd want a second
> predicate for "x1 is a subkind of x2". From the gimste definitions, I'd
> be more likely to use {klesi} for that than "x1 is an instance of x2",
> which is closer to {mupli}. In fact, {mupli} seems to want a property in
> x2, so maybe this could be {klemupli}.

(I would rather re-define "mupli" into "x1 is an instance of x2", but anyway.)

...
> But maybe it's true that kinds are useful enough that the language
> should have special facilities for handling them - e.g. allowing {lo
> mapku} to get a kind. We just need to have ways to disambiguate.

"klesi" allows us to disambiguate between two levels. Disambiguating
between a potentially infinite number of levels is trickier. As the
old Lojban saying goes: the price of infinite precision is infinite
verbosity

> The "imaginaries" terminology of the other thread gives one plausible
> approach to this - treating kinds as analogous (and, in a sense, dual)
> to bunches. {su'o} would get neither bunches nor imaginaries, but {lo}
> could get either.
>
> I suspect that a system based on this could explain e.g. most if not all
> of the sentences in your alis, while also being sufficiently
> disambiguable to satisfy me.
>
> Would you reject such a solution out of hand?

I think that covers most needs, but I suspect there are cases when we
may want to quantify over kinds.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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