Subject: Re: [lojban] x3 of dasni

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 21:56:42 EDT

In a message dated 8/11/2002 5:53:10 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> Ok. That's our problem there. In my view, you cannot have an
> intensional there {lo kosta} independently of any clean-up. There
> is always an extensional interpretation and that is the one that
> holds. So any given place structure, in my view, may be more or
> less useful, but they never tamper with intensionality.
>>
There is indeed, even with the clean-up, but it will usually not be what is 
wanted. If the thing involved in the intentional state is something known to 
exist in the extensional one, then it it perfectly legitimate (it is an 
idiom, if you will, but not a problematic one, since totally rule bound) to 
use it in place of the full clause in which it is mentioned. If any nail 
will do, then {mo nitcu lo dinko} will give the wrong impression, leading us 
to ask things like "which one?" The correct thing to say is {mi nitcu tu'a 
lo dinko}, where the {tu'a} blocks all the extensional moves. On the other 
hand, when time came to drive the golden spike, Mr. Stanford (or whoever) 
could have said {mi nitcu lo dinko} and been quite all right, for the 
question "which one?" has a meaningful answer. (Because of the nature of 
{le}, {le} phrases are almost always safe here, though the usual quantifier 
expansion with {poi} won't work. {voi} does, though.) Notice that {nitcu} no 
longer has an intensional place, only an extensional place to be filled by an 
intensional object, so, yes, every place is extensional. Now. {nitcu} was 
one of the last (as far as I can recall) to get that changed. I suspect 
there are still a few holdouts around. I don't, btw, think {dasni} is one of 
them, but is already very like {nitcu} for giving trouble when non-intesional 
criitters go in when they haven't met the test. Clearly there is no -- or at 
least a very different -- problem with {ko'a dasni lo bukpu mapku le brito 
nolraitru ke solji mapku} and perhaps for {tu'a lo kosta} in the third place 
as well.

<<
Even if they set out to do it they could
not device a place structure that behaves as you propose. In
my view {lo broda cu brode} is equivalent to {da poi broda zo'u
da brode} independently of the meaning of {brode}.
But, of course, they did just that -- which is why they had to change all 
those words. Your general rule -- which does now hold (hold-outs excepted) 
-- gave hideous results (of just the sort you complained of with {dasni}) 
that led to the revisions.

<<
I said it did not
translate the English sentence well, and that the one with {lo'e}
was a better translation. I now think that in order for the
lo'e-sentence to make sense it is necessary that the lo-sentence
also have some sense (even if not always a very useful one). In
other words, I have to understand what {da de di broda} means
before I can understand what {da de zi'o broda} means, and similarly
I have to understand what {da de lo brode cu broda} means before
I can understand what {da de lo'e brode cu broda} means
If {lo'e} is a type, it will certainly translate the sentence better than the 
one with {lo} which does not -- except by a considerable stretch -- translate 
the sentence at all. Just how that leads to the next line escapes me; "in 
other words" certainly doies not seem to apply, since the two sentences seem 
to say totally different things, one about a sentence having meaning and the 
other about how to go about finding the meaning of a sentence (? -- I'm not 
sure just what the second part means at all). I suppose it is correct 
somehow to say that you have to understand what {da de di broda} means before 
you can understand what {da de zi'o broda means} -- certainly, if you un 
derstand the full form, you probably do understand the reduced form. But 
wait: we (most of us, I think) understood {botpi} only by working from the 
form reduced in the last place, so even the general claim is not literally 
true. Nor is the parallelism with {zi'o} at all informative, since it behaves 
essntially the opposite of {lo brode} and {lo'e brode}, which in turn behave 
essentially the same as reegard {broda}.

<<
>But now you
>say, that it [dasni fi lo kosta] is legitmate, but narrower than required 
and that the broader
>one is supplied by using {lo'e kosta} as x3.

Yes, I think that's where I'm getting at.
I suppose that {lo brode} is -- with {dasni} at least -- is narrower than 
{lo'e brode}, since it probably is true of no cases. But that is a feature 
of {dasni}; with a different brivla the opposite might be true or they might 
have virtually disjoint extensions and so not be comparable. Both are 
narrower than (well, at most as broad as) the brivla with no places filled, 
which stands in the same relation to the brivla with that place filled by 
{zi'o}.

<<
The idea is that there is no named critter in the case of
{lo'e broda}, just as {zi'o} names no critter.

Well, take {lo'e broda} to be a sumti of some sort -- as {zi'o} is not, for 
all it goes into a sumti place. I thought it named the 
typical/average/archetype of/type of broda, which is a thing in Lojban 
terms, unless you have a better proposal (I do, by the way, at least for some 
of these readings, but I'm waiting for a good case to spring it again). And, 
of course, it has to be one that accounts for the usage in clearly singular 
sentences like the one we began with, about a particular guy and a particular 
blanket somehow getting mixed up with a type.

<<
So {broda da} can be false while both {broda zi'o} and
{broda lo'e brode} are true. {lo'e brode} does not count
as an instance for {da}, just as {zi'o} doesn't.
The {da} /{zi'o} contrast is trivially true. As of now, the {da}/ {lo'e 
brode} is not because -- by your own rule -- that place is extensional and so 
quantifiable over whatever sumti goes there. And if {lo'e brode} is not a 
sumti, if it really is like {zi'o} then it is a meaningless plug, like {zi'o} 
and so no different from {lo'e brodi} and the like. This idea, whatever it 
is, needs some more work.

<<
>gusta restaurant
>x1 is a restaurant/cafe/diner serving type-of-food x2
>to audience x3
>
>I don't quite see what is like {dasni} here. Maybe we can use types here,
>but simple properties or even sets make at least as much sense: "American
>food," "sushi" and so on.

A restaurant that serves sets and properties? Again it could
have been defined as "serving members of set x2" or "serving
things with property x2", but the wording used does not suggest
either of those.
Bad joke. These are not the foods but the *types* of foods -- and I can't use 
{lo'e} for them since you have taken that off into cloudcuckooland, or at 
least somewhere where I don't know how to follow you, so now we have to fadge 
up a replacement out of available materials, and properties and sets seem the 
most likely candidates.

<<
>There does not seem to be anything that can easily
>support a trip through Counterfactualland, as {dasni} seems to require.

That's true, but two restaurants serving the same type-of-food
will probably not be serving the same instances-of-food.
That is a tautology, of course -- instances of the same type in different 
places are necessarily diferent instances. What is the relevance of that to 
anything at all, particularly to the point about counterfactuals?

<<
I find it as least as weird to say that when I need a nail,
>there is a nail I need as you do about the corresponding move for I wear as 
>a
>coat --

Of course it is just as weird! On the other hand, it is not at
all weird to say "I need my computer" when not any computer will
do. Then it is useful to be able to make the distinction:
{mi nitcu lo'e skami} (I need a computer, any computer) and
{mi nitcu lo skami} (There is a computer I need, namely my computer).

See above; having an intensional place -- or, more accurately nowadays, using 
extensional expressions in places where intensional ones are required -- 
does not always mean that what goes in there resists fronting, etc., only 
that you can't rely on it. So, we have the {tu'a} dodge and the general 
idiom rule mentioned above.

<<
or, worse, that it follows from the fact that I am hunting a unicorn
>that there is a unicorn I am hunting.

Again, I find that as weird as you do. But the solution is
not to "fix" {nitcu} or {kalte} (which BTW was not "fixed").
The solution is to refrain from using {lo} when we mean {lo'e}.
What we have to fix is our tendency to go for {lo pavyseljirna}
to translate "a unicorn" in all contexts.

I was sure there were some missed. I'm surprised about {kalte}, though, 
since it is close to the one that started the whole thing off , {sisku} or 
its predecessor (and notice what a bad job the first crack at dealing with 
the intension problem was). 
But the solution is not to use {lo'e}, especially not as you have it now 
(however that is -- the claimed properties will not help here), but to be 
careful with your {tu'a}s or, in the case of {kalte}, except that it is false 
unless the traget is in sight or nearly so. As for {lo pavyseljirna}, notice 
the {sisku} patch which shifts to the property. In the later forms (as for 
{nitcu}), {lo pavyseljirna} works fine, provided the context is marked with 
{tu'a}. And {sisku} could have been dealt with in the same way, once it was 
worked out.

<<
>I can understand deviating from Lojban
>sometimes, but I do try to keep the deviations consistent with one another.

Me too!

Barring a pretty amazing save, you failed this time. In fact, it is going to 
be pretty amazing if you slavage coherent.