Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response

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

Re lohi/lehi: Is this right?

   lui ro broda = lohi broda
   lui le ro broda
   lui suo broda = "at least one set of broda"??
   lui le suo broda = lehi broda ?????
   re lui suo broda = "2 sets of broda" ???

Jorge:
> > > > 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.
> They are equivalent, as far as I can tell. Existential quantifiers
> commute with each other.

I was putting forward the idea that every sumti in a certain way
involves universal quantification.  That's not the standard view, of
course.

I suppose I ought to be careful to avoid {le remna cu citka lo plise}
and instead say {ro le remna cu citka lo plise}.  Ah - but that's what
{le remna cu citka lo plise} means anyway, isn't it.  If the same apples
got eaten by each of the people, I'd have to say {fe lo plise le remna
cu citka}.

{lo remna cu citka lo plise} should be - how do I say it?  - "some
people each ate some apples" {ro lo remna cu citka lo plise}?  {ro lo
suo lo remna cu citka lo plise}?

> Consider:
>   Three of my sisters have a pair of blue eyes.
> What you really mean is:
>        ro lo ci le mi mensi cu se kanla lo blanu remei

Or {ro lo ci lo mi mensi cu se kanla lo blanu remei}?  I of course see
the logic behind this.  But I find it mildly counterintuitive.  If I
want to say "some books are blue" I can say either {ro lo suho lo cukta
cu blanu} or just {lo cukta cu blanu}, while if I want to say "some
books have a colour" I need to say {ro lo suo lo cukta cu se skari}, or
something like that.  And "People went" would be {ro lo suo lo remna cu
klama}, unless I wish to assert they each went to the same place, from
the same place, via the same place, etc.  Is this right?

> > 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.
> But you never encounter {lo'e remna}.

I think it's more a question of how we perceive the world than how the
world is.  Suppose it is the case that {mi penmi da poi remna}.  How can
I describe that state of affairs to you?  I can do it
quantificationally, with {mi penmi lo remna}.  Or I can select a
specific individual possibly from among many, with {mi penmi le remna}.
Or I can choose not to perceive that there are different remna; I can
choose to perceive there to be only one remna.  Then I'd say {mi penmi
loe remna}.  It's non-specific, because it makes no sense for you to ask
"Which one", since I'm saying I only recognize there to be a single
remna.

If I had to choose a gadri for {stedu be xorxes}, I could choose, on the
one hand, {suo lo}, {ro lo}, or {le}, and the choice would be arbitrary,
since they all come to the same thing.  Or, on the other hand, I could
choose {loe}, which I find especially appropriate for selecting from
singleton categories.

At any rate, I do think {loe remna} can refer to a particular
individual.

> Or rather, you can't conclude anything about {lo'e} remna from
> properties of the one you encounter.
> Let me try to be more clear:
>        mi penmi lo'e remna
>        I had a human encounter (to put it some way).
>        le se penmi be mi se stedu pa da
>        The one I encountered is beheaded by exactly one thing.
> But that does not allow me to conclude that:
>        lo'e remna cu se stedu pa da.
>        Human heads are only one.

Is it also false to conclude from
  mi penmi lo mamta be la xorxes
  le se penmi be mi se stedu pa da
that
  lo mamta be la xorxes se stedu pa da
?

> But I would like to know how to say loe remna has exactly one head,
> two arms, two legs.
> It doesn't, in my opinion, because {lo'e remna} is not a sumti with
> a fixed referent, to which you can give properties, much like
> {pa remna} is not a sumti with a fixed referent to which you can give
> properties.

Well, you *can* say that pa remna has one head, two arms, two legs.

> > > (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}.
> Ok, but make it {lo'e plise renomei}, which is slightly less
> ambiguous.

Why is it slightly less ambiguous?  I thought Lojban eschewed ambiguity
altogether.

> How do you like {lo'e reno plise}?

I cannot think with the profundity necessary to fathom what that would
mean.

Jorge to Dylan to Jorge to And:
> > > > 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.
> > > But you never encounter {lo'e remna}. Or rather, you can't conclude
> > > anything about {lo'e} remna from properties of the one you encounter.
> > > Yes, this is quite true, but not relevant.  And's point is that the
> > > properties of {lo'e remna}, unlike the properties of {lo'i} or {loi},
> > > are of the same type as the properties of {lo remna};
> The properties of {loi remna} are of the same type as those of
> {lo remna}.

The properties of {loi remna} are a superset of the properties of {lo
remna}.  More accurately, the properties of {luo suo re remna} are a
superset of the properties of each of {suo re remna}.  The properties of
{luo pa remna} are the same as the properties of {pa remna}.

The whole challenge of {loe} is that in some ways it is similar to {luo
ro lo remna}, and in other ways similar to {lo pa remna}.

> I think the best way to think about it is that {ta stedu lo'e remna}
> is not at all a predication about {lo'e remna}, but only about {ta}.
> It is as if {lo'e remna} makes {stedu} into a one-place predicate "x1
> is a human head", and all you say is that {ta} fits that predicate.
> {ta se stedu pa da} means "that has exactly one thing as head". But
> there is another possible 1-place predicate "x1 is one-headed" (or
> whatever) that is not a relationship between two objects but only a
> property of one. Say {pavselstedu} is that predicate, then you can say
> {lo'e remna cu pavselstedu}, but you can't say {lo'e remna cu se stedu
> pa da}, because there are more than one thing that are in relationship
> {stedu} with {lo'e remna}.

This makes sense to me.

Pau loe nu smuni joi gerna certu kei se jalge loe nu gehi snada gi
tolsnada vau loe nu tadni loe tarci saske?

---
And