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

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 13:32:22 -0500

At 04:22 PM 10/29/01 +0000, And Rosta wrote:
>Lojbab:
>#>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

I don't know why not. A valid question is whether it is pa valsi or ci 
valsi. In few contexts would one recognize it as pa valci.

>(b) Absolutely all usage is against it
>
>And it shouldn't be true, because (c) we then have no surefire way of
>counting countables.

I don't know why not. As long as it is clear that you are dealing with 
countables in the given context (use selci to make that clear if it isn't) 
and what the selci is for the particular concept. Obviously, with remna, 
the selci is something approximating a whole person (we don't call an 
amputee less-than a person), though in some contexts, a part of a single 
person might be counted.

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

There are no definitions of what constitutes a selci of any kind.

>#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"?

Given the right context, yes.

>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.

If I see only one person, I should say "pa". If context has be 
interpreting what I see as two persons, I should say "re".

>#> > > (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.

The populace of Lojbanistan just hasn't run into the contexts where such 
would make sense.

>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".

There is no "the" archetype. I am a Humpty-Dumpty-ist at heart, in that 
words mean what we think they mean, which depends on the context and on our 
own mental experiences. All archetypes are therefore "in-mind" archetypes.

> I.e. you: "le archetype be lo'i broda", me: "lo pa archetype
>be le'i broda".

I cannot see where, given that archetypes depend on our personal concepts 
of what words mean, the two alternative formulations make meaningful 
differences.

>#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.

I don't see how either alternative is other-than a stereotype. Your not 
getting across to me what the difference is in English (I can see that you 
are using different Lojban words, and usually different Lojban wordings 
result in some kind of distinction, but I'm not seeing what it is).

>#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}.

Of course. But I thought we were arguing about le'e.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org