From a.rosta@lycos.co.uk Sat Sep 28 15:40:44 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_4); 28 Sep 2002 22:40:43 -0000 Received: (qmail 41292 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2002 22:40:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m11.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Sep 2002 22:40:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailbox-14.st1.spray.net) (212.78.202.114) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Sep 2002 22:40:43 -0000 Received: from oemcomputer (host213-121-69-42.surfport24.v21.co.uk [213.121.69.42]) by mailbox-14.st1.spray.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 944E348158 for ; Sun, 29 Sep 2002 00:39:56 +0200 (DST) To: Subject: RE: [lojban] tu'o usage Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 23:41:33 +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: <2d.239770f8.2abe0133@aol.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=122260811 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin pc: > << > I think it is inaccurate to speak of "the Lojban {lo'e}" in > distinction to xorxes's and mine. It is not perverse to construe > the ma'oste's gloss of {lo'e} as a clumsy attempt to capture the > notion of generic reference, and what xorxes and I have been doing > is trying to get a handle on generic reference > >> > Not perverse, but not forced eithere. "the typical x" is a prefectly > understandable and used expression in English and different from the > "the generic x." Part of the baseline, as I understand it, is that > the English text is to be taken as the most accurate description of > the Lojban meaning, so I am forced to go with it. IIRC (& perhaps I don't), Lojbab has explicitly said that this is not so -- that his attempts at providing short glosses are not to be seen as definitional. Given that, "the typical x" is relatively straightforwardly rendered by using {fadni} ("ordinary", from memory) or similar. OTOH generics could also be rendered by some appropriate brivla with {lo'i broda} or {tu'o du'u ce'u broda} as an argument, so it's not an issue of sayability as much as of utility. > Of course, the > description of {le'e} supports the official reading, since the two > are related in the usual o/e way. That has never been apparent to me. Alternative stories about le'e are equally consistent with their counterparts about lo'e. > As I have said (back there somewhere), I think the official line is a > mistake. We could have a more general notion (whether it is the > generic one or not I am unsure) and handle several of these oblique > references (typical, average, ...) by modifications within its scope. > But that requires a relatively clear idea of the function that this > general gadri represents. And I have laid that out -- inadequately > so far, but plausibly in the light of the corresponding things in > English. Meanwhile, I work around the official line. Is there any chance you could lay this (& other things you want us to remember) out on the wiki? > << > You're right that it has not been established whether the inner > quantifier has the status of presupposition/conventional implicature > -- i.e. being outside what is being asserted. > > However, since Lojban generally does not (or never, even?) use > presupposition/conventional implicature, the default should > be that the inner cardinality is being asserted. That doesn't > stop anyone adducing arguments as to why this default should be > overridden, though. > >> > I take it that existence of {na'i} is itself a recognition of the > role of presuppositions and perhaps conventional implicatures. That's not to say that presupp is present in already-existing Lojban, though in fact since writing the above I have cited a couple of clear examples where it is present. > I don't think we have any usage, but my intuition (based on English, > and maybe other languages in their philosophical modes) is that > getting the number wrong in this way makes any sentence, not just any > atomic sentence, false. > > << > If there are more than one broda then {tu'o broda} is ambiguous > -- it is underspecified, and to form an interpretation the hearer > will have to insert a quantifier. The same goes for when there is > only one broda. In other words, {tu'o broda} is neither true > nor false, because it expresses an incomplete logical formula. > >> > I am not sure what this means: {tu'o broda}, not being a sentence > even, is necessarily neither true nor false . Sorry. I meant "a sentence of which {tu'o broda} is part". > The two possibilities > that come to mind are > 1) that you really want this to involve a presupposition or > implicature, neither true nor false when its "claim" fails (but it > seems to be the same even when it is met) > 2) that it is a flag (like {lo'e} in my mind) that the sentence as a > whole is a fac,on de parler for some complex expression in which no > one piece matches the {tu'o} piece of the surface. If it is like > {lo'e}, I would find this plausible, but that association unsupported > so far. And I have seen nothing like an account of what the > undrlying structure might be, by you. I'd say I'm saying that {tu'o} is comparable to {zo'e} or {co'e} -- a blank that has to be filled in before truth can be evaluated. Except unlike {zo'e} and {co'e} you would tend to use it when it doesn't really matter how the blank is filled in. > > << > Yes. It is indispensible because the syntax requires a gadri or > quantifier to be present at the start of a sumti. Ideally it > would be possible to omit tu'o, but the syntax won't allow it; > it's very much analogous to the use of dummy _there_ and _it_ > in English to fill obligatory subject positions. > >> > OK, this is a start at what the underlying structure is, as the > English "is" and "there" are marks for siome following complex > structure is the real subject. What is flagged here? {tu'o} is like dummy it/there in being a filler for a grammatical slot that cannot be left unfilled. "It is raining", say. It's not like it/there in being quasicataphoric. --And.