From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Fri Oct 26 05:20:33 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 26 Oct 2001 12:20:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 15590 invoked from network); 26 Oct 2001 12:20:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 26 Oct 2001 12:20:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta01-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.41) by mta2 with SMTP; 26 Oct 2001 12:20:31 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.253.84.145]) by mta01-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20011026122029.PWCP1543.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:20:29 +0100 To: "Lojban@Yahoogroups. Com" Subject: a construal of lo'e & le'e Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:19:45 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin There is nary a shred of consensus about what {lo'e} and {le'e} mean. The main proposed interpretations that have some currency are: 1. Something similar to {lo fadni be X} or {le fadni be X}. 2. The fuzzily-defined xorxesian usage seen in {nitcu lo'e tanxe}, {djica lo'e pendo}, {kalte lo'e mirli}. 3. Something equivalent to {tu'odu'u ce'u broda}. I find none of these compelling. lo'e/le'e of types (1) and (3) are redundant, being mere abbreviations of other expressions. lo'e/le'e of type 2 is too ill-defined and its functions seems in essence to be to fudge away logical precision (though my attempt to provide a defuzzed definition, below, is in fact compatible with xorxesian usage). OTOH, Lojban's lo v. loi (and le v. lei) distinction fails to capture the distinction (which applies to intrinsically bounded individuals, like people, but not to intrinsic masses, like water) between (i) a group of things taken as a whole, and (ii) a prototype-theoretic category, which is an individual such that members of the category are versions of that individual. From what I can gather, Loglan "lo" was formerly (ii) (so "lo remna/prenu/nanmu" = "Man" (not "man")), while nowadays, like Lojban, it is (i) (so "lo remna/prenu/nanmu" = "mankind"). [In former years I called (ii) a "myopic singularizer".] The contrast is evidence in examples like: (i) Mankind has (exactly) two eyes. [false] (ii) Man has (exactly) two eyes. [true] Lojban {re da kanla lo remna} means (i). So how do we express 'categorial individuals', as in (ii)? -- Using {lo'e}, I propose: {re da kanla lo'e remna}. And what does {le'e} mean? Well, if there is a specific group of one or more individuals, {le} refers to each member of the group individually, {lei} refers to them collectively, somewhat as if you ignore the boundaries between the individuals, while {le'e} refers to the one individual you get if you abstract away from the differences that individuate the different individuals -- in other words, it is the archetype of the group. --And.