Re: [lojban] Individuals and xorlo

On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 9:59 AM, guskant <gusni.kantu@gmail.com> wrote:

You give {su'o pa mei} to all referents of a universe of discourse,
while I give {su'o pa mei} to certain members of it, not to all.

Right, which to me sounds like you want some things in the universe of discourse that don't count as "somethings".

It is for the purpose of giving expressions with {N mei} and {lo N broda} to non-individual referents.

Even if speakers regard {lo nanba} as non-individual, they may want to use {N mei} to a particular referent of {lo nanba}, because the expressions of {N mei} and {lo N nanba} are useful for giving a mapping from an order of quantity into transitivity of {me}. These expressions facilitate comparison of quantity between {ko'a me lo nanba} and {ko'e me lo nanba} without using other unit than what is defined by speakers.

It seems to me that it would be better to use "si'e" rather than "mei" for that purpose, and "pagbu" instead of "me". If you allow things like "so'i da poi me lo pa nanba" you pretty much destroy "me" as "among" and you turn it into "pagbu".

Using {ke'a}, our definitions are described as follows:

(D1-7) ko'a su'o pa mei
(D1) ke'a su'o N mei := su'oi da poi me ke'a ku'o su'oi de poi me ke'a zo'u ge da su'o N-1 mei gi de na me da
(D2) ke'a N mei := ke'a su'o N mei gi'e nai su'o N+1 mei
(D3) lo PA broda := zo'e noi ke'a PA mei gi'e broda

When (D1-7) defines for {ko'a}, the referent of {ko'a} satisfies {su'o pa mei} _non-distributively_.

Any other referents that are {me ko'a} do not satisfy {su'o pa mei}.

As for (D1-7), speakers who talk about non-individual referents may select not only {ko'a} but also any arbitrary {ko'e} {ko'i}... as {su'o pa mei} as long as the selected referents don't conflict each other.

What do you mean by "conflict"? Overlap? Or do you mean that some things are selected as pseudo-atoms, so that, for example:

ko'a su'o mei

ko'e su'o mei

ko'i goi ko'a jo'u ko'e su'o mei

So ko'a and ko'e are pseudo-atoms, because nothing among them (besides themselves) satisfies "su'o mei", but "ko'i" is not a pseudo-atom, because there are things among them, different from ko'i itself, that do satisfy "su'o mei".

Then all and only the pseudo-atoms will satisfy "pa mei", and only things composed of one or more pseudo-atoms will satisfy "su'o mei"..

(D1-7) is only a sample for discussion. Speakers arbitrarily select referents to be {su'o pa mei}, not only {ko'a}.

In other words, (D1-7) gives a subjective unit to non-individual referents. If you don't call it definition, you may exclude it from a set of definitions on {N mei}. In any case, the meaning of {su'o pa mei} is entrusted to speakers, and it is not necessarily {ro'oi da su'o pa mei}.

Defining {su'o pa mei} involves giving a unit to a set of referents that are related with transitivity of {me}. I want to let speakers have the right to define a unit.

"Defining a unit" sounds a lot to me like defining what counts as one, what the individuals are in our discourse.

Since what counts as an individual is context-dependent anyway, why add a second layer? Why have first-class things (which count) and second-class things (which don't count)?

mu'o mi'e xorxes