From a.rosta@lycos.co.uk Sun Sep 22 03:37:14 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 22 Sep 2002 10:37:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 60813 invoked from network); 22 Sep 2002 10:37:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 22 Sep 2002 10:37:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailbox-12.st1.spray.net) (212.78.202.112) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 22 Sep 2002 10:37:13 -0000 Received: from oemcomputer (host213-121-69-89.surfport24.v21.co.uk [213.121.69.89]) by mailbox-12.st1.spray.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 023A05C16B for ; Sun, 22 Sep 2002 12:37:10 +0200 (DST) To: "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] tu'o usage Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 11:38:52 +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: <002001c2618b$53d4d240$05ecf8c1@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: > > I don't see a difference between {pa lo su'o} and {pa lo ro}. What > > am I missing? > It does not matter as long as you exclude the case of 0 with {ro}, and > this... > > pc: > >The {ro}-{su'o} distinction goes back to a time when someone thought > >that {ro}, "every," permitted the case of 0 of the whatsis and {su'o} > > did not. The first part of this turned out to be false in the official > line > > I did not know that the case was settled. In any cases, the book is not > at all explicit about this and I think I remember a recent mail from > xorxes where he says he does include 0. Well, yes; I too think it includes 0. > This being said, I agree that {ro} should not include the 0 case from > a logical and practical point of view. > > > > Note that {pa broda} is nonetheless still the same in > > > our case than {tu'o broda}. > > Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. > > Sorry, that was badly expressed: I meant that the truth value and > the implication on the referent cardinality would be the same. I'm still not sure I understand. But {pa broda} does not claim that there is only one broda, if that is what you are saying. > > 1. {lo pa} is sensitive to negation: whereas {tu'o broda na brode} > > is unproblematic, it corresponds to {lo pa broda na ku brode}, not > > to {lo pa broda na brode}. > > Interresting: you seem to think that {naku} will have an impact > on moving through {lo pa}. I don't think {naku} will change the > inner quantifier of the {lo} expression. That is: > {lo pa broda naku brode} = {su 'o lo pa broda naku brode} yes, this is uncontroversial > = {naku zu'o ro lo pa broda cu brode} = {ro lo pa broda na brode} zo'u? It is unnecessary here. I don't agree that the last 2 are equivalent to the first 2, since the first 2 mean: ge su'o broda na ku brode gi lo'i broda cu pa mei and the second two mean: na ku ge ro broda cu brode gi lo'i broda cu pa mei > and, again with exclusion of the 0 case of {ro} > = {lo pa broda na brode} > > Now, I may have a problem with the semantic of {na} and {naku}, > specifically with the negation of the referent existence: > providing that with {lo broda cu brode} I claim 2 things, > the existence of at least one {broda} referent, and the {brode} > relationship, does the {na} or {naku} in {lo broda na/naku brode}, > apart from deying the {brode} relationship, still claim (or imply) > the existence of at least one {broda} referent? > I would say yes with both {na} and {naku}, but after reading again > the related chapters of the book, I can't say it has been made explicit > (or I failed to see it). Your assessment of the current state of play is accurate, I think, but as I have said to pc, where there is dispute about whether some piece of meaning is within the scope of what is asserted or outside it (i.e. presupposed/conventionally implicated), the default/null hypothesis is that it is within. This is because Lojban makes little if any use of presupposition/conventional implicature (outside of UI, at least), does not discuss it in Woldy, and has no established tradition of acknowledging its existence in Lojban. > > 2. {lo pa} makes a claim. I do not wish it to have to be the case > > that whenever I talk about a du'u I also claim that there is only > > one du'u. If I say {lo pa broda cu brode} I am claiming that > > (i) something is broda and brode, and (ii) the cardinality of > > lo'i broda is 1. But I want to be able to claim only (i). > > If you want to claim only (i), than {lo} alone does just that. But we had already established the reasons for wanting to signal that there is only one broda. The issue is how to signal it -- to make processing easier -- without claiming it. > > First off, let me note that {lo'e} serves as an adequate alternative > > to {tu'o}. > > As I understand now your definition of {lo'e}, it cannot be a true > alternative to {tu'o}: > {lo'e broda cu brode} can be true even if {lo broda} has no referent, > because {lo'e broda} is mainly an category abstraction and does have > a referent, while {tu'o broda} implies the existence of a broda referent. > But I may have misunderstood your definition of {lo'e, given in the ever > lasting thread on 'chocolate and unicorns' :-) They're not exact equivalents, but in the case of a class that uncontroversially has only one member, they are functionally equivalent. --And.