From a.rosta@lycos.co.uk Thu Sep 19 07:55:53 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 19 Sep 2002 14:55:53 -0000 Received: (qmail 31673 invoked from network); 19 Sep 2002 14:55:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 19 Sep 2002 14:55:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailbox-12.st1.spray.net) (212.78.202.112) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 19 Sep 2002 14:55:33 -0000 Received: from oemcomputer (host213-121-66-182.surfport24.v21.co.uk [213.121.66.182]) by mailbox-12.st1.spray.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 2B01C5D967 for ; Thu, 19 Sep 2002 16:55:31 +0200 (DST) To: "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] tu'o usage Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 15:57:11 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <003001c25fec$07856b20$3f2af8c1@ftiq2awxk6> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=122260811 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin Lionel: > And: > > #What is then the semantic of {tu'o broda}? If it is used when there is > > #exactly one thing satisfying the description, why not be explicit > > #with {lo pa broda}? > > Reasons: > > 1. A single-member category is logically simpler than a many-member > > category. It is helpful to users to mark this absence of complexity > > (e.g. it says "Don't worry about quantifier scope"), but it is > > counterintuitive to have to add extra coomplexity, in the form of an > > extra word {pa} , in order to signal an absence of complexity! > > err, but then I can use {pa broda} which the book says is syntactically > the same as {lo pa broda}, This is incorrect. {pa broda} = {pa lo su'o broda}. > and get only one marker. Besides, one should > always worry about quantifiers, as they are always there, implicit > or not. For single-member categories (such as "Lionel Vidal"), there either is no quantifier, or the choice of quantifier and quantifier scope irrelevant. One should indeed generally worry about quantifiers, but when single-member categories are involved, such worry is entirely wasted. Marking single-member categories saves such a waste of effort. > Why not indicate your reader clearly that exactly one thing satisfy > the description if it is indeed the case? This will relieve the reader to > draw that eventually needed conclusion from the use of {tu'a}. You mean {tu'o}? The reasons are those I gave in the message you are replying to. > > 2. {lo pa broda} claims that there is only one broda. {tu'o broda} > > does not make such a claim; it is just that there is no other > > sensible interpretation for it, so it implies that there is only one > > broda. > > In that case, I don't see any differences as I do need this implication > result to fully understand the semantic of {tu'o broda}. There is a difference between claiming something and implying something. This shows up, for example, if the whole sentence is negated. --And.