Subject: Re: [lojban] pro-sumti question

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 16:35:18 EDT

In a message dated 7/4/2002 2:27:35 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> >Now, to be sure, the implicit external
> >quantifier on {le} is {ro}, so we are referring to all the dyadic masses I
> >have in mind, but that is presumably just the one composed of the dog(s) 
> >and
> >the cat(s). But that does NOT mean we are referring to the WHOLE of that
> >mass. Absent some specific indication, we are dealing {pisu'o}ness.
> 
> That doesn't make sense to me. {le broda} refers to each of the
> broda I have in mind, be it {le gerku} (each dog), {le gunma}
> (each mass), or {le remei} (each pair). It does not refer to
> some part of a dog, some part of a mass, or some part of a pair.
> For that I'd have to say explicitly {pisu'o le broda}. The
> implicit quantifier of {lei} plays no role here.
> 

The second sentence is correct in general, the third for dogs but not for 
masses: {gerku} refers to dogs in the usual way, {gunma} and {remei} refer 
to masses in the usual way; the usual way to refer to dogs is as wholes, the 
usual way to refer to masses is as parts -- that is what the quantifiers on 
{lei} say.

<>Now, clearly if one dog in the mass of critters is tired,
>the some part of that mass is tired and so, in Lojban, the mass is tired: 
>{le
>remei cu tatpi}. It may be unreasonable, but it is by the Book.

I'm not sure it is by the Book, I don't have it with me now
so I can't check, but does it go as far as to say that? I thought
it only messed up the implicit quantifier of {lei}. In any case,
when the Book makes no sense, I don't follow it.>

I don't suppose the Book does say this explicitly -- it is remarkably poor on 
semantics and ontology. But, on the assumption (which I am obligated to make 
if I am to learn **Lojban**, rather than a kindred -- or not so -- language) 
that the quantifiers on {lei} are correct, that has to be the way it works: 
{le remei} is, in context, exactly equivalent to {lei re danlu} and subject 
to same interpretation -- if not quite exactly the same grammar.