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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 16:19:59 EST

In a message dated 10/29/2001 8:23:57 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> in Lojban a sequence
> of one or more sumti can count as a sentence.
> 

Technically not; every sentence must contain a bridi tail. But such a string 
could be a fragment.

<I'm talking about current Loglan, or at least my desultory reading of it.>

Even then the sumti-observative seems to ahve been rejected as too unclear 
(i.e., how to tell it from a fragment or the beginning of a longer -- though 
slowly emitted -- sentence ("...derry.")

<So anyway, it seems the rule for Lojban is that a zo'e x1 cannot be
elided.>

No, observatives are possible (actual, even). It just is that the role of 
such elided {zo'e} is restricted to objects at the center of one's 
observation.

<What le/lo have to do with observatives is that the sentence
{lo gerku} could mean "Lo! A dog", while {le gerku} could mean
"Lo! The dog".>

Well, it is not a sentence, and I suspect a bit of subconscious punning to 
get to this reading (it was surely present when the idea was first presented 
-- so far as I know -- in '76 or so). Oddly, the object of observation is 
always {le} by definition, so the pun fails.

<No. Jorge's usage was intended to be canonical/defining, replacing the
meaning that has to do with typicality.>

Yes, that mistake, too; even xorxes can't set up a new canon for a fixed term.

<, the whole 
#point of {tu'a} is to prevent the quantifier on -- or one derived from -- 
the 
#sumti from rising to the upper level, so of course the quantifier goes on 
the 
#{le nu ... co'e} that {tu'a} indicates.  Where has this been doubted?  

I don't remember this ever having been the whole or even the partial
point of tu'a. Tu'a marks so-called sumti-raising, and I don't recall the 
quantification either having been settled or much discussed. My memory
may be unreliable, though.>

Well, I claim that MY memory is non-veridical, so I won't dispute on what has 
or has not been said. Somethings are so obvious as not to need mentioning 
even here (until the mention is required, of course). The only logically 
interesting feature of subject raising (and, indeed, almost the only 
linguistically interesting one, aside from cooccurrence restrictions) is that 
it gives a surface structure (in English and most languages -- but NOT in 
Lojban) that appears to allow quantifications that are in fact illegitimate 
and the point of reconstructing the invisible clause is to explain why the 
quantification is illegitimate.  

<It's a good exception, but you can't escape it being an exception, given
the rule that sumti quantified in situ are interpreted as being quantified
in the prenex of the localmost syntactic bridi.>

I can and do. First, as you know, I do not believe there is a rule
of the superficial and erratic kind that you seem to be appealing to here, 
from which a raised subject is an exception. Secondly, in the real rule of 
which yours is a parody (and, but for the erratic element, in yours too), the 
sumti in {tu'a sumti} does not occur in the bridi in which {tu'a sumti} 
occurs. Thirdly, that sumti is bound in the bridi in which it does occur.

<Come on, you chide others for saying "Lojban can't say X". Just make the
appropriate lujvo.>
I didn't say it couldn't be done; I just said that we have lost a natural way 
of doing it somewhere along the line. As for making a lujvo, people dislike 
mine as much as my translations and a lujvo does not seem the appropriate way 
to go here anyhow.

<#Well, it will fail -- at least to be useful -- if it cannot be given some 
#meaningful content.  Historically, it has been used as a magic wand to cover 
#cases that could not be made to fit otherwise  

you're talking about {lo'e}, I take it. Or prototype theory?>

Prototype theory.(this version of {lo'e} a fortiori).

<The main answer to all of this is that lo'e and its implementation of 
prototype
theory's categorial individual (= 'prototype') makes available an alternative 
ontology. Users who find that ontology useful can use it; those who don't
needn't. All pretty Lojbanic.

To answer your "Is it a blueprint or a member of the class or a way of 
talking 
about the class fuzzily", those are indeed answers given by weak forms of
prototype theory, but the strong form is best understood as saying that
either there are no categories, only individuals, or that everything is a
category. Either way, the traditional member-of relation is replaced by the
version-of relation.>

Still lacking is any explanation of what this might conceivably mean that is 
different from either bad statistics or worse Platonism. I suppose bad 
Platonism is a possible ontoology, but it doesn't help here, because, as 
noted, the prototype has very few properties in common with the versions and 
so fails to do its job. Alternate ontologies are welcome, but tey ought not 
be brought in to solve a problem they in fact make worse.

<I think it isn't what I would think of as Platonism. For example I can see
touch and smell the pc prototype, so prototypes aren't inherently abstract
(-- I understand Platonic categories to be inherently abstract).>

Whoa! You can (or could in certain situations) see, touch and smell ME, but 
I am not a me prototype in any interesting sense. I suppose, we are back now 
to st-worms and temporal (or maybe even some kinds of spatial) cross 
sections. That works for an individual, but not for a natural kind (let 
alone a {le} group). This is not coming across as an ontology now, so much as 
a verbal formula that covers several ontologies that inherently have nothing 
to do with one another. That judgment may turn out to be wrong (see 
Lesniewski's mereology), but it sure needs a lot of work to make it plausible.

<#-- in which case the question of connection -- which may not be 
#important in the present sense -- remains unsolved, 

I don't know what that question is.>

What is the relation between the prototype and the version by virtue of which 
the version is a version of the prototype, rather than something else.

<#and of course means that 
#the individual has properties that none of its versions has and 
conversely).  

I think this is held (by prototype theorists) to not be the case. I would 
favour
going along with that view in the interpretation of {lo'e broda}, and taking
{lo'e/tu'o du'u ce'u broda} to be the Platonic essence.>

Yes, but HOW would they do it? I take {lo'e [or whatever] du'u ce'u broda} 
to be a property, and thus not the right category to be an Ideal or a 
prototype or...

<I don't want to debate the ontology itself. I just want to argue that it is 
important
enough that Lojban should have a way of expressing it, and furthermore that
it's useful if it is expressed by a gadri..>

I am sure we can come of with an expression meaning "is a/the prototype of" 
to express this ontology, I'm trying to find out just how this helps explain 
a gadri. Byron on Coleridge: "explaining metaphysics to the nation, how I 
wish he'd explain his explanation." I have a pretty clear idea what {lo'e 
cinfo} means, I have rather less of what a prototypical category of lion is.

<Apparently KOhA gets quantified, not just LE, so (without my knowing the
formal grammar) it seems plausible that the grammar allow "li" and "me'o"
to be quantified.>
Oh, it probably does, but I am not sure that a default was specified 
(presumably {pa}, but I wouldn't be surprised at anything).

<However, my ulterior question is: What should one do when the grammar
requires a gadri but, as with "li" and "me'o", the sumti attaches always to
unique objects? Answers so far are "tu'o" and "lo'e".>

I agree, but, on the other hand, since it won't in the end make a difference, 
take whatever you like (well, {lo'i} is clearly a mistake as is any number 
but 1). I like {tu'o} for its in-your-face nose-thumbing and dislike {lo'e} 
because it is obscure and possibbly wrong.

<Those examples, on certain construals, take us into an imaginary realm
where there is only one customer and only one postman, and situations
in other realms where there are many customers and many postmen are
versions of the imaginary one. To me this is not an unnatural mode of
thought, and it is desirable that Lojban be able to express it relatively
effortlessly.>

Well, I don't like it to be too easy to move into imaginary realms -- I 
certainly want a least one major flag up when I move. It does seem to me 
that Lojban is more than adequately equpped -- though not yet very well 
trained -- for making such moves easily and visibly. I am less sure about 
versions of an imaginary postman, however.