* Sunday, 2011-11-27 at 07:25 -0800 - John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
> > To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> > Sent: Sun, November 27, 2011 8:15:51 AM
> > Subject: Re: [lojban] semantic parser - tersmu-0.1rc1
> >
> > * Saturday, 2011-11-26 at 22:58 -0600 - John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> >
> > > On Nov 26, 2011, at 8:04 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> > > > * Saturday, 2011-11-26 at 17:40 -0600 - John E. Clifford
> > ><kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> > > >> On Nov 26, 2011, at 12:29 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> > > >>> Since there's a single intended referent-bunch, {le broda} is invariant
> > > >>> under passing it through a negation.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Obviously it isn't wholly immune to scope, because of the {ro da le
> > > >>> broda be da} issue.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I don't see why it should be even when the description doesn't
> > > >>> explicitly mention bound variables; e.g. why {ro verba cu prami le
> > > >>> mamta} shouldn't be a reasonable abbreviation of {ro verba cu prami le
> > > >>> mamta be ri}, or why in {pu je ba ku mi'o jinga fi le bradi} we
> > > >>> should have {le bradi} getting the same referents both times.
> > > >>
> > > >> It is a linguistic precondition of the collapse of parallel sentences
> > > >> marked by {je}.
> > > >
> > > > I suppose it just seems odd to me that we don't allow the unfilled x2 of
> > > > mamta in {ro da poi verba cu prami le mamta} to refer to da.
> > >
> > > I would assume that (by a different process) the unfilled place their
> > > will be taken to be {da}.
> >
> > But if it is, {le mamta} isn't constant with respect to {da}, as xorlo
> > (and, I thought, you) claim it must be.
> >
> > Or you mean that this "different process" could be just contextual
> > guessing - {le mamta} is interpreted as a constant, presumably as the
> > constant bunch consisting of all mothers (or maybe of the kind Mother,
> > if that's different), but the reader reads more into the resulting prami
> > claims than is actually stated?
>
> I'm not sure whar you mean by "constant with respect to {da}". The given
> occurrence of {le mamta} is within the scope of a universal quantifier on {da},
> so, on one reasonable interpretation, its reference varies with the variation on
> the instantiations of {da}, i.e. it is a function.
Xorxes claims that it can't be a (non-constant) function, and that it
only can be when {da} is mentioned *explicitly* in the description.
The gadri proposal also states this (although it doesn't mention the
possibility of {da} occurring explicitly, so isn't wholly consistent).
> > > >>> Anyway, {lo broda} just adds to {le broda} the side-claim that the
> > > >>> referents *actually* broda, rather than merely that I expect you to
> > > >>> think that they do (or otherwise understand me when I describe them as
> > > >>> brodaing). OK!
> > > >>
> > > >> And subtracts the specificity that the in mind provision gives.
> > > >
> > > > It does? How can it be non-specific and yet not involve quantification?
> > >
> > > I suppose all quantifiers are by nature non-specific, but the converse
> > > doesn't hold. The lions, who are mucking in my garden, are not very
> > > specific lions; I know them by their deeds, not as individuals or even
> > > as a herd. I don't, as the story has developed, even know how many
> > > they are or whether they are the same each night. I would presumably
> > > know these things about le cinfo.
> >
> > OK. That's still specific in the sense I have been understanding the
> > term (and I would feel free to use {le} in such a case).
>
> I always have trouble with just what "specific" means, so my example may be
> ill-chosen. Hoe about the direct Lojban version of "The lions are restless
> tonight"?
The way I'm understanding 'specific' (at least as regards the meaning of
{le} and {voi}) has the english 'the' always introducing something
specific. I may be wrong...
Martin
Attachment:
pgpa1c3dIQJFn.pgp
Description: PGP signature