Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] Quantifiers, Existential Import, and all that stuff

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 20:10:33

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...) :)

><Could you explain how the domain quantified over is not always
>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