Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate and matters someone has related to it

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 02:30:23 +0100

pc:
> [email-masked] writes:
> 
> <<
> 
> where {tu'a da} is a cover for {tu'o du'u 
> #ce'u co'e da}, it's going to get the implication the other way as well.
> 
> Is {tu'a da} a cover for {tu'o du'u da zo'u ce'u co'e da}? That is the
> crux, and I think we all want the answer to be Yes.
> 
> >>
> I don't see that it makes much difference, unless {co'e} contains 
> something with other quantifiers than particular in it. If not, then 
> (skipping the fringes) {co'e da} and {da zo'u co'e da} are 
> equivalent. If {co'e} does have the buried quantfiers, then they 
> are not, but {tu'a da} will be the unfronted form (I think: we can't 
> lift the prenex alone since then we don have something of the form 
> {co'e da}) Why is this important?

Just the old chestnut about whether the quantifier on da in {tu'a da}
occurs within the bridi directly containing {tu'a da} or in the
bridi implied by {tu'a} -- we all agree the latter, I think, on 
utilitarian grounds.

> &:
> <<
> I still haven't had time to digest those ideas, but in the meantime
> I have remembered an old argument in favour of {lo'e} or
> {tu'o} in these exx. It seems to me that what is essentially
> going on in these exx -- and also generally with generic
> reference -- is that a category is being conceptualized as
> a single individual ("myopic singularization"). E.g. it is
> quite easy to think of Chocolate as a single individual,
> and "I like chocolate" means the same as "I like Chocolate".
> >>
> Yes, that notion was around often for {loi}, as one of several ways 
> to deal with masses. I'm not sure it helps here. but that is mainly 
> because ever attempt to cash that idea in for some definite already 
> intelligible notions and operations, never got much beyond the stage 
> of xorxes {lo'e}. We could try tet again, I suppose, but I don't 
> really think it will come to much this time either.

I know that I never really managed to sell anyone but Jorge on the
idea -- or rather, never managed to get anyone but Jorge to think
the idea sensical. 

I am confident that nowadays the standard view of loi is that loi cukta 
is (some of) the agglomeration of all books, and not just the one
Book. So lo'e would be giving the old Mr Rabbit idea a new home.

> <<
> So on this basis I understand your use of {lo'e} and agree
> with it. The question that remains in my mind is whether
> there is a difference between {lo'e broda} and {tu'o broda}.
> >>
> That suggests that you understand myopic singularization, which, 
> since it was, I think, one of your early contributions, is to be 
> expected. But I don't recall anyone else ever getting the knack of 
> it, and certainly most now on this list don't know what you are 
> talking about. I suggest a thorough exposition, if you think the 
> notion will really help here (not that I am inclined to think that 
> xorxes' idea is one we need to add to Lojban).

Past experience suggests I won't be able to explain myopic 
singularization. I gave it a really good try a year or two back,
but without success.

How would you say in Lojban things like "The beaver builds dams"
-- intended as a generic (universaloid) statement?

As for xorxes's idea, I wasn't initially convinced that he had found
the right solution (though I am now), but all the same I could see
no decent alternative way of expressing the examples that have
been under discussion.

> <<
> BTW, this automatically gives us a useful meaning for
> {le'e} -- it would mean {(ro) le pa}.
> >>
> I don't see how this is automatic nor even desirable or useful. And 
> it certainly doesn't have any much connection with the cases at hand. 

Automatic because as {lo'e broda} coerces conceptualization of {lo'i 
broda as a singleton category, so {le'e broda} coerces conceptualization
of {le'i broda} as a singleton category.

Desirable and useful because it is useful to mark singleton categories
as singleton categories, because they are not sensitive to quantifier
scope: if a singleton category is not marked as such, then the
interlocutors are put to unnecessary mental effort to heed 
scope relations. Yet to my mind, using {le pa} draws unnecessary
attention to the cardinality -- "le pa nanmu" is like saying "the
one man", while "le'e nanmu" would be more like "the man".

> (I infer from the o/e alternation and the standard meanings, that 
> {le'e} is the subjective or selective version of {lo'e}. Does this 
> mean that {lo'e} means {lo pa}?) 

{lo'e} sort of means {lo pa}, but whereas {lo pa broda} makes a
truth-conditional claim that there is only one broda, lo'e 
encodes a nontruthconditional instruction to reconceptualize
broda in such a way as, so reconceptualized, {lo pa broda} would
make a true claim.

--And.