Subject: Re: [lojban] pro-sumti question

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 20:23:33 EDT

In a message dated 7/4/2002 6:25:03 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> >{le remei} is, in context, exactly equivalent to {lei re danlu} and subject
> >to same interpretation -- if not quite exactly the same grammar.
> 
> It is not exactly equivalent. {lei re danlu} refers to the two
> animals. {le remei} could refer to each of any number of pairs.
> If there were two cats and two dogs, for example, {le remei} could
> be "each of the two pairs". So even if you accept the inconvenient
> implicit quantifier proposed by the Book for {lei}, you don't have
> to create a strange interpretation for {le remei}.
> 

Why I said "in context." Of course, in another situation or even with a 
different interpretive principle, {le remei} might refer to any pair you have 
in mind, including pairs of pairs and so. But, if you want to insist (as 
Jordon seems to) that {le remei} means mass of the cat and the dog, then you 
are stuck with the rest of it. That mass is tired if only the dog (or only 
the cat) is, just as the mass chases the potman if only the dog does. Masses 
aren't as useless as sets, but they need to be treated carefully.

<I think that's a big confusion. For starters {gunma} and {remei}
refer to relationships, {le remei} refers to things that go in the
x1 of {remei}. If {le remei} refers to only part of a mass I could
say {mi remei} on the grounds that I am part of a pair. That doesn't
make sense. The quantifier on {lei} cannot get suffused into
the relationship {remei}. One thing has nothing to do with the
other.>

Interesting question. Is {ko'a joi ko'e gunma ko'a ce ko'e ce ko'i} true or 
not? If true then your remark backs up my point about masses being only 
partial. If false then, then {loi gerku cu gunma lo'i gerku} is also false, 
against a number of basic sematic principles. {gunma} means -- like most 
predicates -- "is A mass" not "The complete mass" from some set. {remei} 
notice talks about the size of the set underlying, not about completeness 
either.