Subject: [lojban] Re: paroi ro mentu

From: Jordan DeLong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 12:22:56 -0500

On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 04:41:57PM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> Here's another argument on why {paroi ro mentu} has to mean
> "once per minute" and not "once in an interval that contains
> every minute":
> 
> As a general rule, we want {broda <tag> ko'a e ko'e} to expand
> to {broda <tag> ko'a ije broda <tag> ko'e}. I don't think we
> want tags that explicitly contain quantifiers to break this
> rule, so {mi klama le zarci paroi le pavdei e le reldei} means
> "I went to the market once on Monday and I went to the market
> once on Tuesday" (or was it Sunday and Monday?), it does not mean
> that I went once on the sum of Monday and Tuesday. To get that
> meaning we have to say {mi klama le zarci paroi le pavdei ku joi
> le reldei}, "I went once in the Monday-Tuesday period".

I agree with all the above. If the monday-tuesday period was part
of the same trip, I think {jo'u} might be nicer than {joi}, in that
it makes it clear you went on both days and not just the two
considered together (which would allow if I had only gone on monday).

> If we accept that {e} must expand as usual even with quantified
> tags, then the same must apply to quantified sumti, since the
> quantifier {ro} corresponds closely to the connective {e} for
> these purposes: {mi klama le zarci paroi ro le re djedi}, "I went
> to the market once on each of the two days". To say that I went
> once in the two-day period we can say {mi klama le zarci paroi lei
> re djedi}, which corresponds to {le pavdei ku joi le reldei}, or
> in this case we can also say {mi klama paroi le djedi be li re}.

Huh? I don't see how either of the above addresses logical connectives
for this. And since you're arguing against the left to right
interpretation, shouldn't {paroi ro le re djedi} mean once in all
of the two days?

> Conclusion: the quantifier of a tagged sumti always has scope over
> the quantifier within its tag, even though the latter appears first
> in the expression. Otherwise, these tags would have perverse and
> unwanted effects on logical connectives.

Where's the perverse effects? *boggle*

> A different issue altogether is the interaction of quantified
> tags with other than its own sumti. In this case we can have:
> {mi klama paroiku la paris e la romas}. This expands to
> {paroiku zo'u ge mi klama la paris gi mi klama la romas}
> "Exactly once, I went to Paris and I went to Rome."
> I have no idea if from that we can further expand to {mi klama
> paroiku la paris ije mi klama paroiku la romas}, "I went to Paris
> exactly once and I went to Rome exactly once", I think we shouldn't.
> Depending on how this goes, then tags will or will not have scope
> over quantifiers of following sumti other than its own.

I think you have the expansion wrong (I have no idea why you moved
paroiku into the prenex. This was recently discussed in another
thread: the only thing which exports to the prenex is naku). It
actually expands to:
mi klama paroiku la paris .ije mi klama paroiku la romas.
I went to paris exactly once; I went to rome exactly once.
Which is exactly what you would expect from a logical connective.

mu'o
-- 
Jordan DeLong - [email-masked]
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku