From jjllambias@hotmail.com Fri Mar 08 12:10:34 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: jjllambias@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 8 Mar 2002 20:10:34 -0000 Received: (qmail 36832 invoked from network); 8 Mar 2002 20:10:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m6.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 8 Mar 2002 20:10:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.217) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 8 Mar 2002 20:10:33 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 12:10:33 -0800 Received: from 200.49.74.2 by lw8fd.law8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Fri, 08 Mar 2002 20:10:33 GMT To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Bcc: Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] Quantifiers, Existential Import, and all that stuff Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 20:10:33 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Mar 2002 20:10:33.0735 (UTC) FILETIME=[4DBC6970:01C1C6DD] From: "Jorge Llambias" X-Originating-IP: [200.49.74.2] X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=6071566 X-Yahoo-Profile: jjllambias2000 la pycyn cusku di'e >Yes, {lo'i broda} can refer to the empty set, but then {lo broda} is a >meaningless expression, since it presupposes that lo'i broda is not an >empty >set. So {lo broda na zasti} is meaningless in real Lojban when {lo'i broda} is empty. In my version of non-Lojban it is not meaningless, it is actually true. In my version, the different gadri are just different ways to refer to the same things. >Actually, the official line is that if lo'i broda is the empty set, the >use of {lo broda} transports the discourse to being about an alternate >world >in which loi broda is not empty. But then in the alternate world {lo'i broda} is not empty. In that official line then {lo'i broda} cannot refer to the empty set. >OK. You're speaking a different language. But doing it on a Lojban list >and >using a vocabulary that is almost identical to Lojban is very misleading >and >annoying. I apologize for the annoyance. I always try to point out where I deviate from the official doctrine though, so as to minimize any misleadership. >Since this not a monitored list, I don't suppose that you can be >stopped from doing this. Nor do I think that anyone would want to, since, >aside from an occasional aberration like this and main clause {kau}, what >you >write is some of the best Lojban around (even though it turns out on >inspection not to be Lojban at all). Thanks! (I think...) :) >the one mentioned as subject? When is it not?> > >Well, the short answer is (surprise!) when the quantified expression does >not >have existential import. But that is, in this context, circular and in any >context not completely accurate. The longer answer is, when quantification >is at some level attached to a representation of the unnamed universal >class, >rather than to a presentation of a subset. So, in particular, when Lojban >has {ro da} the quantification is over the universal set, which {da} >represents, not over whatever might come after it, which is the subject in >English and Spanish (and...). We are, in these cases, talking about >everything there is (in a perhaps conventionally restricted universe of >discourse), as opposed to {ro lo broda} where we are just talking about >brodas. (The exception about existential import is, of course, just about >anything other than {ro} and something like {broda je brode}) I read that paragraph a few times and I don't understand how it invalidates anything of my system. So, between my flawed system in which I can't see what the flaw is, and a flawless Lojban system which is hard to work with, I will have to go with my flawed system. >BTW, I think I may have been overhasty in accepting some of your >suggestions >for expressions in the Lojban system, but that problem is minor compared to >this one. I can't even see what this problem is, so I can't compare it to the other problematic suggestions which you are not identifying. mu'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com