Subject: Re: [lojban] pro-sumti question

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 14:22:32 EDT

In a message dated 7/4/2002 10:44:43 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> And, note the "le remei" is _not_ a mass. It's a description of
> something that could go in x1 of remei, treated individually. The
> place structure of remei is
> x1 is a set with the pair of members x2
> so we're strictly more interested in x2. But because it's a description
> and because the set contains those members, "le remei" gets ya the
> same result.
> 

Lord, I thought this got settled years ago:
mei MOI cardinal selbri convert number to cardinality selbri; x1 is the 
mass formed from set x2 whose n member(s) are x3 
Sets are generally useless, masses often very useful. We go with the 
useful.

And, of course, if {le remei} did refer to a set, the sentence would be 
nonsense, since sets can't be tired -- or much else, for that matter (why 
they are useless). You can go from the fact that someone says something 
literally meaningless to a claim that they intended something meaningful 
somehow related to the meaningless claim, but that seems a very roundabout 
way of doing things when a straightforward way is available (and 
insignificantly longer).

<Umm; I don't think it's important how many dogs or mlatu there was. Using
the remei to describe instead of reusing a previous description should be
enough to show that we're talking about a pair of sumti (not a pair of dogs
or a pair of cats or a pair of dog+cat).>

Well, we're talking about **the referents** of a pair of sumti, not about the 
sumti themselves: sumti don't get tired either. If there are two dogs and 
five cats and they all get tired, then we need to use (on this approach) {le 
zemei}.

<The explicit version would be
le sumti smuni se remei
the pair of sumti referents
but there's no need to be that accurate as the listener could likely get
that anyway.>

If you want the pair, the presumably you leave out the {se}, otherwise -- to 
show that there are two, say {le re sumti smuni}. But (aside from whether 
smuni are referents rather than senses -- as the contrast with {selsni} and 
{snismu} appear to counter), if there are two dogs and five cats, then there 
are either seven referents or two, both of which are masses -- and so we are 
back tothe problem that one tired dog tires the whole and the original claim 
needs {piro}.

<So the pair of sumti referents could be
{two dogs} + {five cats}
it's not important. All it really is is "le gerku" + "le mlatu". More
context could get things more specific if neccesary.>

You opt for the second possible reading. But what then is the nature of the 
"+" in your equation? I suppose it is {.e}. Then one tired dog and one 
tired cat tire the lot. If it is {joi}, then just the tired dog is needed. 
If it is {jo'e}, the whole is meaningless again, for we are back to sets. 
And, btw, it is not ""le gerku" + "le mlatu"" (which would be "le gerku le 
mlatu" (a string of letters or words) but "le gerku + le mlatu" (at best -- 
even this is suspect).

<The problem with ri .e ra is not size, it's two things. First is
scalability; letsay the problem was
le gerku cu jersi le mlatu poi jersi le smacu
now it needs to be ri .e ra .e ru. The problem gets worse if you want
more (yes these are contrived examples, but you should get the point):
le gerku cu jersi le mlatu poi jersi le smacu poi jersi le manti
ri .e ra .e ru .e ruxipa .oi.oi>

Yes, things get awkward as the numbers grow, and the {ri e ra} solution 
obviously only works so far. But the {le n-mei} does not work at all, without 
a lot of extra frills that don't seem reasonable to assume. I was not 
claiming that {ri e ro} was a general solution, only that it worked in the 
instant case as well or better than existing alternatives cited (there may be 
an existing alternative that no one has noted yetso I am not yet to the 
experimental cmavo stage). 

<The other problem with it is more minor: it's just using the normal
prosumti guys. So it's a little bit like english:
The man chased the woman. (changed for gender pronouns)
He and her got tired.
Which doesn't invalidate it as a solution (like the scaliability does),
but it less than elegant.>

"He and she got tired" (case counts, too). I'm not sure what elegance 
amounts to, nor whether it has a place in a logical language that overrides 
accuracy and initial plausibility. I find the kind of mental acrobatics 
involved getting to what {le remei} means in this context very inelegant -- 
kludgy indeed.