Re: [lojban] semantic parser - tersmu-0.1rc1

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

Well, I am glad you know that quantifiers don't refer, since then you can 
understand my discomfort at seeing them treated as though they do: like names, 
in fact.  To be sure, at a certain point (prenexing usually), they receive some 
different treatment, as they pass through negations and the like (or don't, as 
the case need be).  But, while they don't refer, they do have a set of true 
instances and these are often dependent upon quantifiers in whose scope they 
lie.  Thus, the {su'o plise} of your example appears to lie in the scope of two 
universals (I'm ignoring the negation for the moment, since it doesn't affect 
the issue) and to have the corresponding true instances.  But the intention is 
that it have two instance sets, one for each quantifier: the hybrid set is 
neither of these (probably).  So this makes the sentence seem strange.  Your 
claim is that the sentence ought not be taken at face value, but understood as 
the result of applying a fairly simple (so far, anyhow) set of interpretation 
rules.  And (so far, at least) these rules do regularly yield the right 
results.  But then the question is, how else are these rules justified?  They 
seem to have no basis in logic, probably because they deal with structures logic 
does not allow, intermediate constructions which are not to be taken too 
seriously (except that they usually are also sentences of Lojban) on the way to 
the final results.  I can hope that eventually a Montague grammar will come 
along to justify moves that accomplish the same results in a rationalized way.  
Until then, success is probably good enough  -- and may always be.  But it does 
not present much in the way of guidelines when difficulties arise.

I am not sure I understand your objection to the traditional solution to donkey 
sentences.  Do you know of cases where it just doesn't work?  The non-quantifier 
case is handled nicely by analogy: "Each of Mary and Jane is such that those who 
love her want to marry her."



----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, December 10, 2011 9:23:16 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] semantic parser - tersmu-0.1rc1

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 2:07 PM, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Dec 9, 2011, at 9:24 AM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 8:39 PM, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> 
wrote:
>>
>>> Except that quantifiers, unlike negations, introduce references to things.
>>
>> In the sense that they need a domain of quantification? Yes. And the
>> domain of quantification should be maintained for quantifier "terms"
>> that are shared by eks or giheks.
>
> Not domain, instances are the problem.

Quantifiers do not introduce any reference to instances. That's just
not what quantifiers do. Quantifiers don't refer. They count. And when
a "quantifier term" is shared by two branches of a conjunction, the
count must of course be the same for each branch, and the domain must
of course be the same for each branch, but that's all. That's just
like when a quantifier is under the scope of another. "ro da su'o de"
is not much different from "(... .e ... .e ... .e ...) su'o de", and
not much different from "ro da (... .a ... .a ... .a ...)" and not
much different from "(... .e ... .e ... .e ...) (... .a ... .a ... .a
...)".

(Of course there are important differences, such as the connective
form requiring individual names for each member of the domain, or the
quantifier form allowing for an indefinite number of members in the
domain. But these differences don't affect the issue at hand, which is
what has scope over what.)

Quantifiers don't refer. Quantifiers count. I don't know why this
point needs to be made over and over again.


> Well, of course, I don't think donkey sentences are problems; we know exactly 
>how to handle them and always have.  they do present problems for rules of your 
>sort which try to take items one at a time and in order, rather than a more 
>global (at least context-sensitive) approach.  As soon as you assign a {su'o} to 
>all "floating" variables, you have eliminated the possibility of donkey 
>sentences, which may or may not cripple your results, but seems rather 
>arbitrary, given how natural languages work.

I don't agree donkey anaphora are to be equated with implicitly bound
variables.

In any case, I refuse to discuss donkey anaphora before we settle the
(in my opinion trivial) issue of the expansion of eks and giheks, and
the movement of "quantifier terms" and "negation terms" to the prenex
in the first place, and the (not so trivial but still realtively easy)
issue of implicitly bound variables. Trying to discuss donkey anaphora
without those two prior issues settled is in my opinion pointless.

> Again, this is a theoretical ( even aesthetic) comment.  The needs of a 
>speakable language override logical clarity.  If the crude rules always give the 
>right results, what's the problem? Even a little braggadocio does no harm.  But 
>a bit of concern with justifying the rules by something other than their results 
>wouldn't hurt either.

The unpacking rules I propose are not based on their results, although
of course their giving the desired result is obviously a plus.

The rules are based on the observation that quantifiers and
connectives are ultimately at some level the same kind of logical
construct, and should therefore be treated basically in the same way.

(I just said I wouldn't discuss donkey anaphora before settling eks
and giheks, but I can't refrain from pointing out that donkey anaphora
can turn up with connectives as easily as they do with quantifiers, as
in for example: "Everyone who loves either Mary or Jane wants to marry
her.")

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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