Re: TECH: {loi} & {loe}

la .and. joi mi cusku be di'e casnu

> > Therefore, "lo djacu" represents one or more water-quantities
> > (of indeterminate but definite size);
> 
> Yes...
> 
> > "loi djacu" represents a collective plural of these water-quantities,
> 
> yes...
> 
> > which in fact is a porridgification of water.
> 
> No.
> Or rather, not necessarily. Suppose it is the argument of
> "is sufficient to make the pitch unusable". This is (in the context
> I conjure up) true of the collectivity of le djacu, but not of
> each djacu distributively. None of this means that I have to
> conceptually eradicate the boundaries that distinguish one djacu
> from another. As proof, notice that in English we can say
> "here are cheeses weighing 10 kilos together" - which is distinct from
> "here is cheese weighing 10 kilos"; {loi} gives the former, not the latter.

This seems to be the core of the dispute.  I grant that the two English
sentences are distinct in some sense.  But I cannot conceive of any
circumstances in which I would assent to one but dissent from the other.
(If you can see any, please enlighten me.)  Therefore, I claim that
"loi cirla cu ki'orgra li pano" can be translated either way.

> > Just so, at least with regard to porridgification. I never understood
> > myopic singulars: when the mythical Trobriander says "Ah, Mr. Rabbit
> > again", I understand him to be saying "Ah, another outlier of
> > Rabbit-Porridge ({loi ractu})."  Kind of like wandering the world and
> > occasionally spotting another outcrop of the Midgard Serpent.
> 
> For me, that is the porridgification of all ractu.
> At any rate, I understand exactly what you mean and it's not what
> I mean by myopic singularization. Suppose on Monday you see Flopsy
> and on Tuesday you see Mopsy. How many rabbits did you see? Two.
> Now suppose you saw Cottontail on Monday and Cottontail again on
> Tuesday. How many rabbits did you see? One. Now suppose that
> on Monday you see a rabbit and on Tuesday you see a rabbit. How
> many rabbits did you see? Well, to answer you have to find out
> whether it was the same rabbit. Myopic singularization just assumes
> it was the same rabbit - it says "as far as I can (be bothered to)
> tell, there is just the one rabbit".

Yes, that is my understanding.  "I never understood myopic singulars"
was elliptical for "I never understood how any one could interpret
Lojban mass gadri as producing myopic singularization."

> In a collectivity the whole has various properties independent of its
> parts; it has a certain autonomy from them. And crucially, it has
> discernible parts. A porridge has no discernible parts (though it
> can have ingredients); and it is not autonomous from whatever
> constitutes it. (Most individuals are porridges.)

Humph.  The porridge I ate last Friday had discernible parts: the banana
slices.  The water and cream-of-wheat, however, had become inseparable
as a result of the cooking process.  I think your distinction is
unnecessarily fine.  A group of 5 people has easily discernible parts,
and very few emergent properties.  A group of 500,000 people has parts
that are quite difficult to discern unless you look on such a small scale
that you can't see the group any more; its emergent properties are its most
important ones; it behaves quite autonomously.

But I have no trouble calling both of these "loi prenu".

> > Certainly it doesn't match my concept of a species (jutsi), which is
> > an individual, not a class or set or collective.  >Homo sapiens< is
> > an individual, ontologically on a par with other individuals; its
> > components are various (biological) individuals alive or dead.
> 
> Classes, sets and collectivities are individuals. (As far as I can see.)
> I'd have thought a species is a class. I can't imagine what's your
> concept.

I find this hard to pin down exactly in words.  >H.s.< is not a set, because
sets are defined by their members, and >H.s.< would be the same if, say,
I had never lived.  It is not a natural kind either, because natural kinds
are defined by their properties, and >H.s.< cannot be defined by a property
(many have tried and have failed).  It is not a collection of any sort.

> > Second, note that tenseless Lojban bridi (unlike their English
> > translations) are potentially any of "caa", "ka'e", "nu'i", or "pu'e".
> 
> I am so appalled by this rule that I haven't yet been able to bring
> myself to face up to it.
> 
> Few concepts are as ill-understood as these. (If you think logic or
> linguistics has a ready account of them, please point me to it.) Thus
> they shouldn't even have cmavo status, and to have the default
> unspecified is just a nightmare. (Usage goes against it, though.)

"Unspecified" just means that the domain of interpretation can compel
an unmarked sentence to belong to any of these types, just as an un-tensed
sentence can be made to belong to any time and place.  Of course the
overwhelming majority of unflagged sentences are "ca'a", because that's
what pragmatics insists on, but there are exceptions like "all ducks fly".

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.