Subject: Re: [lojban] Mass/Set

From: Peter Moulder <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Mar 2000 15:05:10 +1100

"Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]> writes:

> From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>

> la pyjym cusku di´e

> >Just to clarify: {lei nanmu cu citka lo plise} is similar to saying
> >{su'o le nanmu cu citka lo plise}, except that it could also mean that
> >one or more apples were shared between the men.

> I think I agree, but to me the rule is what you call the exception.

(I didn't wish to make any claim on probability distribution of eating
situations behind the claim {lei nanmu cu citka lo plise}.)

> In any case, that is heavily context dependent.

(I believe it is a generality rather than an ambiguity. I use those
two words in the sense that generality is to ambiguity as {lo P1} is
to a veridical version of {le P1}. The difference is most notable
when in a negated context: the negation of a generality claims that
none of the alternatives is true, whereas the negation of an ambiguity
claims that one of the alternatives is false.)

> >I believe the important thing with masses is that the group when
> >considered a unit accomplished le nu citka lo plisa.

> Yes, I agree with that.

> >[Repeat in simple Lojban:
> > le nu lei nanmu cu citka lo plise kei
> > cu simsa
> > le nu lo plise cu fatra le nanmu

> The x2 of fatri has to be something with members, either
> {le'i nanmu} or, my preference, {lei nanmu}. Otherwise,
> you end up saying that for every x which is one of the
> men, an apple is shared among x. An apple shared among
> one man.

Yes, I agree; well spotted.

> > ni'o
> > mi jinvi le du'u
> > ro broda ro brode zo'u
> > le nu lei broda cu brode kei
> > cu nibli le nu
> > le girzu be fi le'i broda
> > cu gasnu le nu brode

> I think you have to use bu'a and bu'e instead of broda
> and brode. ro broda is "every thing that is a broda"
> and not "every predicate ´broda´".

Yep, I agree again.

> Also, I'm not sure that gasnu is so general as to work
> for every predicate. In many cases the x1 is not an agent.
> I would rather say {le girzu cu ckaji le ka ce'u brode}.

And yet again; I admire your clear-thinking.

> >I'm not sure whether or not {le nanmu cu bevri le bloti} requires that
> >the same boat(s) are carried by each man; the reference grammar has
> >conflicting statements on this question. (Now there's a troll.)

> Yes, each of the men has to carry each of the boats.

That isn't what I was questioning. I agree with what you say, but the
issue is whether "the boats" refers to the same boats for each nanmu.

Excerpt from Chapter 14:

# 6.1) la djan. klama le zarci
# .ije la .alis. klama le zarci
# John goes to the market,
# and Alice goes to the market.
#
# Here only a single sumti differs between the two bridi. Lojban does
# not require that both bridi be expressed in full. Instead, a single
# bridi can be given which contains both of the different sumti and
# uses a logical connective from a different selma'o to combine the
# two sumti:
#
# 6.2) la djan .e la .alis. klama le zarci
# John and Alice go-to the market.
# 
# Example 6.2 means exactly the same thing as Example 6.1: one may be
# rigorously transformed into the other without any change of logical
# meaning.

I'm pretty sure that in example 6.1, the two occurrences of `le zarci'
can refer to two different sets of markets. (If that is not the case,
can someone explain what would need to come between two occurrences of
`le P1' to legally denote different sets of P1? `ni'o', perhaps? Or
even just `.i'? Is there any difference (apart from emphasis) between
`.i' and `.ije'?)

If I'm right in the above, then the claim that one may rigorously
transform either of 6.1 and 6.2 into the other entails that different
sets of zarci can be meant in 6.2 too. If that is the case, then I'd
have thought that this would extend to {le prenu cu klama le zarci} and
indeed also to {le nanmu cu bevri le bloti}.

However, chapter 16, near the end of section 7, seems to contradict
that.

My guess is that the last paragraph of the quote from chapter 14 is
incorrect, and that the two aren't identical unless one inserts "bi'unai"
into example 6.1.

> i le nu le nanmu cu bevri le bloti cu ca'a nibli
> le nu ro da poi cmima le'i nanmu ku'o ro de poi cmima
> le'i bloti zo'u da de bevri

To discuss this properly, I think we have to phrase things as "the
claim that {le nanmu cu bevri le bloti} can be equivalently expressed
as {ro cmima le'i nanmu cu bevri ro cmima le'i bloti}", so that
le/le'i refers to what the hypothetical claimer means rather what we
mean when writing it.

I'm having difficulty expressing that (i.e. the thing in double-quotes
above) in Lojban.

I certainly agree with what's said in double quotes above, and in fact
I said something similar in my previous post.

co'o mi'e pyjymym.