Subject: Re: countability (was: RE: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 15:26:44 EST

In a message dated 11/1/2001 9:42:53 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> You and pc are supporters of B. I think most other people take it for 
> granted 
> that A is the case. I seem to recall Jorge being a proponent of A.
> 

I refuse to be pinned down on this one. I tend to use Lojban like English 
and so get A's all over the place, but I recognize that Lojban is not English 
and certainly some aspects of lojban make more sense from B. Hating every 
minute the following, I have to agree with Quine that what Lojban words 
really mean is not something that can be spelled out except in Lojban.
May I add that I find it odd that And, a proponent of a new (relatively in 
this discussion) metaphysics which is at least more obviously compatible with 
B, should at this point be a strong backer of A.

<As for me, I think A better matches the way users see things, and it
probably makes life less complicated.>
Yes, for thoroughly SAE enculturated folks that we all are. RElevance to 
what is going on in Lojban?
 
<If we went with B, then in order to talk about two words without relying on 
glorking, we'd have to use a lujvo, valsi zei selci,  or other equivalent 
complex expression.>

This is not obvious; we just might have to recognize that others would come 
up with a different "count" -- some people follow Mr. Whatsis's moves better 
than others.

<Possibly the best would be to have analogues of measurement selbri:
  This kilos ten  = this weighs 10 kilos
  This words ten = this is ten words.>

No, we don't have verbometers we can read a number off the scale of or 
compute from other readings.  

<But this debate only arises under story B>
Not obvious. I had assumed that the discussion about what was a sentence in 
Lojban (carried on in English) was entirely within the A framework, yet came 
up with a different number of sentences --and different boundaries -- within 
the same text.