Re: lu'a

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

> xorxes:
> Thepronoun "they" (which corresponds to massification) in English is much
> more common than "each of them". It seems like a good idea to have the
> simple form get the useful meaning.
> pc:
> Back to our different experiences of language: why does "they" mean the
> mass rather than the distributive reference?

I don't know why, but I suspect that because mass reference is much more
versatile and easy to handle. The distributive one is too rigid for most
purposes.

> It seems to be about as
> often one as the other (with occasional cases of AVG and even a few of
> the set itself).

Could you give some examples where it is unambiguously distributive?

Things like "They gave me an apple", or "She gave them an apple" are
clearly massified. The only way to get the distributive sense in those
cases is to be explicit: "Each of them gave me an apple", or "they each
gave me an apple", or perhaps "they gave me an apple each", and the
same for "She gave each of them an apple", "She gave them an apple each".

In other cases it may be more ambiguous, but I can't think of any example
where "they" by itself has to be distributive, i.e. cases where the mass
reading would be clearly wrong.

> Best to have simple anaphora and a quick way (the luha
> series, I am assuming) to get to the one we want on a given occasion.

I find the mass reading the simplest of all, but I guess that what is
simple is subjective.

> xorxes:
> I already interpret ti, ta, tu, mi, do as masses (mi'o, mi'a, ma'a, do'o
> are officially defined as such, if I'm not mistaken). The other
> interpretation is just too weird. I can't read {mi klama lo zarci} as
> "Each of us goes to a market", possibly each to a different market. The
> mass reading is the one that makes sense to me.
> pc:
> The compound ones are explicitly masses, I think (though I am
> not enthusiastic about that), but I did think that the first few were the
> few remaining cases of singular reference in Lojban.

To me, mass reference (i.e. reference to the whole mass, not to some
submass) is a case of singular reference.

> Does _mi_ really no
> longer mean "I/me" but rather "we/us" as well , so that there is NO
> singular reference to simple individuals?

It 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 emphasised 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.

> All the more need then for the
> luha series as described, so that I can actually say (with strange
> difficulty) that I myself alone go to the store, rather than some general
> or massified claim about some unspecified group that happens to have me
> as a member.

Not some unspecified group, just the group that is speaking through you,
which usually will have only one component, of course. And there is also
a way to make it explicit, with {mi'e}.

> Ptui! (What is the smiley face for that?)

I don't know. An appropriate attitudinal might be i'enaisai  :)

> > BTW the referent of
> > ko'a under the massifying effect of goi would not be the pair of dogs but
> > their mass, still one entity.
> I don't know what would be the difference.
> pc:
> A pair is presumably a set, which cannot bite, etc.

So "I was bitten by a pair of dogs" is not good English?

>  However, I hope that xorxes
> will continue to expound his version of the luha series, so that I can
> incorporate it into my reconstruction when it (his version -- but may my
> reconstruction too) becomes clear.

I'd be happy too, but I'm not sure which parts 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?

Jorge