Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

Dylan:
> > There are differences between masses and myopic singulars, as I'm
> > sure you're aware.
> What is a "myopic singular"?

The idea is that one elects to conceptualize all instances of a category
as being the same individual.  Think of how we conceptualize the moon.
Each night we think of it as the same moon, but in principle we could
think of the moon on one night and the moon on other nights as different
moons.  Thinking of them as the same moon is myopic singularization.

There was a debate on how {loe} and {lee} should be interpreted, and
that's how it concluded - that they should be myopic singulars
(+veridical and non-veridical).

Myopic singularity has various advantages.  It avoids the need for
specificity on the one hand or quantification on the other hand, and
furthermore it has no effect on quantifier scope, and is therefore a
safe choice of gadri.

> > while {ci da stedu loi prenu}
> > can be true, if the person mass contains three people.
> Is {ci da stedu loi prenu} right, or would it have to be {piro loi cida
> stedu loi prenu} or {lo cimei stedu loi prenu}?  Is each of the heads,
> individually, a head of all three?

{ci da stedu loi prenu} is right.  Each head is head of the one mass.

> > > > Since there is no point in using quantifiers with
> > > > loe, that would leave {re do} unambiguously meaning "two of you".
> > > Yes. Can you accept {mi nitcu re lo'e tanxe} on the same grounds?
> > > i.e. "I need two of Mr Box"?
> > Well, I accept it as much as I accept {re loi tanxe} or {re la xorxes
> > jambias}.
> I'm a little bit more wary of {re lo'e tanxe} than the other two.
> Does it mean "two typical boxes" or "two Platonic ideals for a box"?

It means, roughly, "two of the one and only box".

> > So what is "a set of boxes"? {pisuho lohi tanxe}?
> That works, I think.  How about {lo se cmima be lo tanxe} or {lo'i
> su'o lo tanxe}?

Ah, yes. {lohi suo tanxe}.

Jorge:
> > {ci da stedu loe prenu} is probably false (or at
> > least conceptually really weird),
> Yes, but for the opposite reason that you think, I think. There are
> in fact many more than 3 human heads. (I prefer to talk about {stedu
> be lo'e remna} rather than {be lo'e prenu}. I don't think the number
> of heads is very relevant or easy to determine for general {prenu}.)

Ah. So you'd say {suo ci da stedu loe remna} is true. I can see why.
Weird. If you go off an find every human head, you find they each
belong to loe remna. But if you encounter loe remna you find that
Signor(a) Remna has one head. Cor.

> If you want to claim that only {pa da stedu lo'e remna}, then that
> {pa da} has to be a {lo'e} type object as well, and only {lo'e}
> objects could be in relationship with {lo'e} objects, which would
> limit its usefulness enormously.

No, I don't want to claim this.  But I would like to know how to say loe
remna has exactly one head, two arms, two legs.

One of the selling points in the Lojban publicity pack I received
however many years ago was that it might Whorfianly reshape one's world
view.  I think myopic singularity is the thing that's done that for me.

> (In fact, I'm tempted to write {ta tanxe reno lo'e plise} for
> "that's a box for twenty apples", i.e. a twenty-apple box, not
> necessarily for any particular twenty apples.)

Ooh no - please - rather {ta tanxe loe re no mei plise}.

> > and {ci da stedu lee prenu} is probably
> > false too, if we're referring to a person,
> But {le'e prenu} doesn't refer to any person, only to the particular
> idea of person that you have in mind.

I think referents are ideas of things. What I meant was "if {lee prenu}
is here used +veridically" (i.e., I suppose, indistinguishably from
{loe prenu}).

> > while {ci da stedu loi prenu}
> > can be true, if the person mass contains three people.
> No doubt. Exactly three things are heads of some fraction of the
> mass of all persons.

"Exactly three things are head of some person-age".  ["-age"=/@dZ/]
"There are exactly three things such that there is some person-age that
they are head of."  Actually, make my example {loi remna se stedu ci
da}, because I reckon there must be some universal quantification hidden
here.  Consider:

  Three of my sisters have a pair of blue eyes.

They don't all have the same pair.  So, it should go something like
this:

  Ex, cardinality of x is 3, Ay y in x: y is sister of me, Ez,
    z is pair of blue eyes of y

Contrast

  A pair of eyes belongs to three of my sisters.

To me this supports my view that the logical form of {(ci) lo broda} is

   Ex (cardinality of x is 3), Ay, y in x: y is broda

and the logical form of {le (ci) broda} is:

  (cardinality of X is 3) Ay, y in X: y is broda

> > > > Since there is no point in using quantifiers with
> > > > loe, that would leave {re do} unambiguously meaning "two of you".
> > > Yes. Can you accept {mi nitcu re lo'e tanxe} on the same grounds?
> > > i.e. "I need two of Mr Box"?
> > > Well, I accept it as much as I accept {re loi tanxe} or {re la xorxes
> > jambias}.
> But that's different. {loi tanxe} and {la xorxes} have not been
> myopically singularized, they are singular on their own right.
> If you don't have a problem with {re do} for "two of you", (understanding
> {do} in the m.s. sense,) then there shouldn't be a problem with {re lo'e
> tanxe} either.

What I meant is that {do} on its own should be understood as "loe do",
while if there's a quantifier it should be understood as "lo do".

How, incidentally, does one actually say "le do", "lo do", "loi do",
"loe do", etc.?  I presume these are ungrammatical.  Would {le suo do,
(lo) suo do, loi suo/ro do, lei suo do, loe suo do} be okay?

---
And