luha

["John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>]

xorxes:
Could you give some examples [of "they"] where it is unambiguously
distributive?
pc:
None of these seem to be unambiguously either way
without a lot of context ("You hadda be there!") but some are more
probably one than the other.  So, for example, "They are running the mile"
might be about a relay team or about the whole track team, only some of
whom were actually running the mile, but it is more likely distributive.
"They are racing their cars" is even more likely distributive.  To be
sure, as xorxes notes, an "each" or some such expression does help in
English.
xorxes:
I find the mass reading the simplest of all, but I guess
that what is simple is subjective.
pc:
I would have thought that
individuals were objectively simpler than any mass or class of them.  But
carrying that over to language assumes we have an equally simple way to
refer to individuals and that is not true in Lojban, so maybe there masses
are simpler to talk about at least.
xorxes:
To me, mass reference (i.e.
reference to the whole mass, not to some submass) is a case of singular
reference.
pc:
True, but I was thinking of sorta normal individuals,
ontological primes, if you will, for I take masses and classes to be
derivative things -- which appears to be unlojbanic of me.
xorxes:
[mi] has meant "we/us" for as long as I know Lojban, I didn't know it was
different originally. Indeed the point that Lojban does not mark the
plural/singular distinction has been emphasized much more than I think is
compatible with what is really the case. Of course, the "we" of "mi" is
not just any old "we". It does not include the listener nor others that
are not represented in some sense by the speaker. The speaker is the voice
of all the components of that "we", that's why I think that the mass is
the natural reading. The same happens with {do}, which in my opinion does
not address each of the listeners independently, but all of them as one
audience. I understand {ko dunda lo plise mi} to be "give me an apple",
not "each of you give me an apple", even when the audience consists of
more than one person.
pc:
Well, mi was singular throughout the Loglan
phase and into the Lojban one some ways.  To get to plural reference (in
some rather specially strange sense) required the added indicators of who
was in it with me.  Those combos were masses (eventually).  (BTW those
masses indicate the need for the standard lu'a, to back to the individuals
in them again: "We are racing our cars.")  The issue of plurality was
thus dealt with and felt to appropriate in this case (since every
language does make this distinction with the personal pronouns), while
the inspecificity of number was appropriate for descriptions (and,
occasionally, even names). I find the new reading objectionably
autocratic, King Mi speaking for the peones, not even bothering to
identify them.  But, as xorxes notes, mi'e can be used to specify
somehow (not clear exactly how, is a name without its usual trimming
actually referential?)  The case of  _do_ is admittedly less clear,
since languages do not all separate singular and plural as well (English
for a stark example). (Is _ko_ really a form of _do_?  Not obviously
with some attitudinals attached.)
sos:
> Ptui! (What is the smiley face for that?)
I don't know. An appropriate attitudinal might be i'enaisai  :)
pc:
I am not sure that i'e is the right attitude modality but naisai is
pretty close to the right degree of negativity.
sos:
> A pair is presumably a set, which cannot bite, etc.
So "I was bitten by a pair of dogs" is not good English?
pc:
Of course it is good English, but it is also distributive (most
plausibly) and so refers to two entities not one, rather than the case
under discussion.
xorxes:
I'm not sure which parts [of my theory about the meaning of the lu'a
series] are still unclear. What would be a problem with my version? What
would be something that cannot be said with it but can be said with
another version? Is there some internal inconsistency with it?
pc:
Well, I have tried to set up a grid of all the le/lo forms with all the
lu'a forms in front each.  For most of them, I am just unsure what
xorxes wants to put in the spot, for a few I think I know (but am
cautious about even that), for a few others I seem to find two different
suggestions in what xorxes says (or at least I think they are different,
meaning they do not sound the same to me -- I admit I may be blinded by
my readings of other constructions and my preference for the simpler
lu'a readings) and for a very few I find that xorxes seems to give
either vacuous or impossible readings (again from my understanding).  I
think the most useful thing for me would be for xorxes to prepare a grid
of that sort and fill in each square explicitly.  I fear even
 that would have its problems, since we have different starting points
on some issues (what massifying a mass or any other individual does, for
example). But it would open up some areas of agreement, perhaps, or at
least I would know where my real problems were.
pc>|83