Subject: Re: [lojban] po'u considered harmful

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 12:12:23 EST

In a message dated 1/14/2002 9:18:57 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

kreig
> #as one could easily say either
> 
> > #'mi'e kreig.' or 'mi me la kreig.' 
> 

>And: 
> 
> > The latter is equivalent pragmatically but not semantically. It means
> > "I have the property of Craighood".
> 
> 
> Not really: that would be "mi ckaji loka me la kreig." It means,
> rather, "I am one of the Craigs", given that we don't really know
> if "la kreig." has a singular or a plural referent.
> 
> 
me ME sumti to selbri convert sumti to selbri/tanru element; x1 is specific 
to [sumti] in aspect x2

This is still running on some official lists. It is usefully vague. 
Presumably Cowan wants x2 to be jest' (identity/membership/inclusion), And 
wants it to be haeceity, I want it open.

The Refgram, of course, adheres to Cowan's view and is said to overrule other 
versions floating around.

<What's malglico is to say "mi du lo <selbri>" instead of just
"mi <selbri>".>

No, again that is like English but perfectly legitimate logically. It is 
prolix in most contexts but there are surely some where it would be useful. 
It is exactly equivalent to short form.

<I know that that is the official line, but I think it fails. "me X" is licit
and meaningful even when X has no referent. For example, "mi me
lo broda" = "Ex x is broda & I have the property of being x". In
contrast, "I am a referent of _lo broda_" would be nonsensical.>

No, it is equivalent to the previous case, since the referents of {lo broda} 
are just the broda. If X has no referent, then {me X} is simply false for 
every case -- but meaningful.

<I've never got straight in my mind how "la" works when 'plural'.
If "mi po'u la bab" means "each of us that is each thing called 'bab'",
then that fails. But if it means "each of us that is the group of things
each of which is called 'bab'" then it still fails. To be sure that what
you say is correct, I think we need the logical structure made
explicit, with, if necessary, an indication of which part of the
structure is provided by each word in the phrase.>

This smells of equivocation, and probably at the use/mention level. Although 
we use {la bab}, the working seems to depend upon {zo bab}, though it is 
further complicated by the possibility that la bab is itself a class.