Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 19:07:54 EDT

In a message dated 9/17/2002 1:37:45 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> I think any translation of {lo'e broda} that starts with "the"
> will be misleading, as English "the" is hardly ever used for
> this sense.
>>
Lacking an answer to the question what {lo'e broda} means, I can't comment. 
"The" has seemed an appropriate gadri for many of the things that we have 
talked about on this thread -- unique things and obliquely referring 
expressions a like: they are presumably unique and specific.

<<
For a given {broda}, we define the predicate {kairbroda}, so
that it means "x1 is broda to something that has property x2".
(Let's assume broda has only two places, other places would
remain for kairbroda the same as for broda).

We can now give a precise definition of {broda} in terms
of {kairbroda}:

ko'a broda ko'e = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du ko'e
ko'a is broda to ko'e = ko'a is broda to something that
has the property of being ko'e
That works out all right, but I would resent calling RHS a *definition* of 
LHS; if any thing, the defining goes the other way -- as the status of the 
words involved quite rightly suggest. ({broda} is primitive, {kairbroda} is 
derived from it). I'll skip over the question of whther there is suc a 
*property* du'u ce'u du ko'e, since the existence of the Lojban phrase is all 
that is called for here. I don't see any gain in doing this -- other than 
longwindedness and obscurity.
I tend, by the way, to ve VERY suspicious of any maneuver that involves 
burying a quantifier inside a predicate. This is a favorite trick of 
philosophical snake-oil salesmen to get you to treat the predicate as a 
normal one and then they pull the "something" out, to the amazement of all 
(and the confounding of the actual situation). I don't suppose you are doing 
this deliberately with that intent, but be aware that there is a danger here 
that can get even snake-oil men occasionally to buy their own 'panacea.'

<<
Now if we introduce quantifiers:

da zo'u ko'a broda da = da zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du da

The same for {da poi brode}, which is {lo brode}, and
which can be moved away from the prenex, but only in the
first expression:

ko'a broda lo brode = da poi brode zo'u ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
ce'u du da
Yeah, but this is getting more and more complicated without gaining anything. 
Given the definition of {kairbroda}, all of these follow from -- and mean 
the same as -- the natural Lojban expressions they *explicate* How will this 
help?

<<
It is clear that we cannot remove {da poi brode} from the
prenex in the right hand side expression, because that would
put it inside of du'u, and the sense of the whole expression
would change.
This is not obvious and I am inclined at first glance to think it false. 
Quantifying in -- moving a quantifier from outside an intensional context to 
inside -- is rarely a problem, though some information information may be 
lost. In this case, a thing such that there is a brode to which it is 
identical will also be a thing that has the property of there being a brode 
to which it is identical. They look to be materially equivalent, though I 
suppose the meanings ar slightly different -- just not enough to make a 
practical difference.There may be a catch somewhere, but I don't see it now.

<<
Now, what about the expression {ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u
ce'u du lo brode}? Is there no way to express it with
broda as the selbri? Let's define {lo'e brode} such that:

ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u du lo brode

But {ce'u du lo brode} is just {ce'u brode}, so we can
simplify a bit more:

ko'a broda lo'e brode = ko'a kairbroda tu'o du'u ce'u brode
I smells snake. To the first question, the answer is yes: {ko'a broda lo 
brode}. So, not to my complete surprise (but to my considerable 
disappointment) {lo'e broda} turns out to be a messy way of saying {lo 
broda}, so far as I can see.

<<
This can be repeated for {lo'e brode} in x1 or any other
place just by defining the appropriate corresponding selbri.
With {selkairbroda} : "something with property x1 bears the relation broda to 
x2" Looks like the same problem.

<<
I think this analysis works for all the "intensional context"
selbri (indeed the redefinition of {sisku} was an attempt to do
something like this, the gi'uste {sisku} corresponds to the
{kairsisku} that one has to define in order to give the
expansion of {sisku lo'e brode} with original {sisku}.
I don't see the intensional predicates in here at all. If {broda} is 
intensional, then x2 will be a property of intensions {... du'u ce'u du 
le/lo/tu'o nu/du'u ... brode} and, since all intensions always exist there 
will be even less problem with the collapse. I don't see how -- as you 
clearlly intend -- this move even looks like it gets rid of or inside an 
intension, unless ther is another predicate here that buries the intension 
along with the quantifier, an even riskier procedure. 
Your move is somewhat like the one in getting to the present {sisku} (I knew 
there was an objective reason for disliking that move), but not enough to get 
any advantage from it -- {sisku} needs the property and cannot shift back to 
the object at all, while this {lo'e} never gets off the object level for all 
its locutions to the contrary.

<<
But the same expansion applies to every selbri, not just the
"intensional context" ones. For example:

ko'a viska lo'e broda = ko'a kairviska tu'o du'u ce'u broda
He sees-something-with-the-property-of
being broda

(No claim that there is something such that it is seen, the
"something" of the English gloss is part of the predicate.
Normally of course there will be something that is seen,
but this is not part of what is claimed.)
The salesman's hook. It is exactly what is claimed, wherever the quantifer 
is buried (and we did not even look at what negation does here) and burying 
the quantifier is correspondingly uninformative, misleading, or just a plain 
cheat.
How is {ko'a kairviska tu'o du'u ce'u broda} going to be true if there is not 
something there to have the property of being a broda. {sisku} is not a good 
model here, because it always took an intensional place -- and {viska} never 
does (you can't see what ain't there) 

<<
I don't think I could give a canonical list. The examples
we've been using are things like {nelci lo'e cakla},
{nitcu lo'e tanxe}, {pixra lo'e sincrboa}, {simsa lo'e sfofa},
{claxu lo'e rebla}, etc. those are useful, but {lo'e} makes
sense in any position where {lo} does.

What do you think of the explanation of {broda lo'e brode}
in terms of {kairbroda}?

Since {lo'e broda} apparently is just {lo broda} in all practical situations, 
the same list will do for both.