Subject: RE: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 16:22:14 +0000

Lojbab:
#At 08:36 PM 10/27/01 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
#>John:
#> > And Rosta scripsit:
#> >
#> > > 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)
#> >
#> > First of all, "intrinsic mass" is not a Loglan/Lojban concept at all.
#> > Water is the mass of water droplets (or molecules), and mankind is
#> > the mass of human beings. They have exactly the same status.
#>
#>I know that's the official line, but I think it's untrue. The definition
#>of some brivla includes a specification of the individuating properties
#>of a single instance of the category, while the definition of others
#>does not not include such a specification, and these are the 'intrinsic
#>masses'. So yes, "djacu" is not "water" but "a portion of water", but
#>there is no specification of what does or does not count as, say, two
#>portions of water.
#
#The fact that the English definition is worded a particular way does not 
#signify, except that English is constrained to make such 
#distinctions. remna is "a portion of human" which bears the appropriate 
#minimal set of properties associated with its various places "ka remna" 
#(without ce'u, or with all places ce'u, I hope). But the English "is a 
#portion of water" makes more sense than "is a water", just as "English "is 
#a human" makes more sense than "is a portion of human".

This is not true, because:

(a) A fairly recent debate about "lu pa re ci li'u cu valsi" agreed (iirc) that
it wasn't
(b) Absolutely all usage is against it

And it shouldn't be true, because (c) we then have no surefire way of
counting countables.

Given a-c, either remna doesn't mean "a portion of human", or its definition
specifies what counts as one portion.

#Example, also invoking observatives. If I run across a body part, I might 
#indeed use the observative "remna", even though all I have seen is a part 
#of a human.

And, more crucially, might you also say "mi viska pa remna"? And if so,
could you also say "mi viska re remna", when you see just the one severed
leg, or when you see just one person.

#> > > (i) Mankind has (exactly) two eyes. [false]
#> > > (ii) Man has (exactly) two eyes. [true]
#> >
#> > Hmm, in (ii) is the subject "man" or "Man"?
#>
#>"Man". "man" in English can't mean much besides output of what
#>Jackendoff calls the 'universal grinder' -- "after the traffic accident there
#>was man all over the pavement". Bare count nouns can't usually be generics:
#>"Man" is a lexically-specific exception.
#
#But in Lojban, all predicate words can be used interchangeably in that 
#manner. It may be hard to translate some of them into English to show the 
#parallelism, though.

I know you've said this before, and I am personally sympathetic to a
certain version of your story, but I think the Populace of Lojbanistan
is against you on this.

#> > I think this posting is absolutely unmatched in your postings on L 
#> semantics
#> > for its orthodoxy.
#>
#>O good. Note that most prevailing interpretations of lo'e (i.e. the best 
#>guesses
#>of people who have ventured to make a guess) are unorthodox, and
#>that "le'e" does NOT mean "the stereotypical"; the mahoste is wrong.
#
#No it isn't. I just had a different understanding of the meaning of 
#stereotypical than you apparently to. To me, "stereotypical"~="archetype", 
#but we use the former when we wish to note the subjectivity of what 
#constitutes the archetype from vary viewpoints.  

I don't have a problem with that gloss of what 'stereotypical' means. But it
is not what {le'e} should mean. You want {le'e} to mean "a certain in-mind
archetype of lo'i broda", while I say it should mean "the archetype of
le'i broda". I.e. you: "le archetype be lo'i broda", me: "lo pa archetype
be le'i broda".

#As has been noted in the 
#news of late, the archetype of "crusade" is something different for Muslims 
#than it is for Westerners (and particularly Bush, who used the word in a 
#speech). Given that "le" is speaker's in-mind, it seemed to me that the 
#stereotype would be the archetype used by a speaker.

I understand (and understood). It's not foolish that in trying to deduce
the meaning of {le'e} you'd come up with "le archetype be lo'i broda".
However, I was arguing that it should be "lo pa archetype be le'i broda".
When John said I was being ultra-orthodox, I then pointed out that that
meant the mahoste was wrong.

#>Also, altho Woldy says "le'e is to le'i as lo'e is to lo'i", the actual
#>examples are wrong: they're consistent with the meaning "the stereotypical",
#>but "le'e xelso merko" should mean "the average member of a certain groupof
#>Greek Americans", not "the stereotypical Greek American", and "le'e skina"
#>should mean not "the stereotypical movie" but "the average member of a
#>certain group of films" (e.g. "le'e skina stars Lee Van Cleef", which is
#>certainly false of lo'e skina, but true if le'i skina is the set of
#>spaghetti westerns).
#
#If the only movies I have ever seen are spaghetti westerns, then my in-mind 
#archetype of a skina will indeed star Lee Van Cleef.

Fair enough, but I would be as entitled to challenge the veracity of
{lo'e skina stars Lee Van Cleef} as I would be to challenge the veractity of
{ro skina stars Lee Van Cleef}.

--And.