Re: tech:masses

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

pc:
> The point, as and reminds us, is that all those habitual and gneric
> and professional and ... labels have the potential, at least, for
> opacity and needs a warning and perhaps a marker to prevent
> problems.

I hope that what I reminded us is that habitual/generic/professional
"labels" have the potential for opacity, but not that we need a warning
and perhaps a marker to prevent problems. But we skirmish on this
in another message.

> As for porridgification (I think I came in late in that discussion,
> since it sounds familiar once mentioned, but I can't find it in my
> archives), it is, of course, whatever the English (and so on)
> count/mass distinction is.

Yes, that's what I intended. Or at least, porridgification is count-to-
mass conversion. Mass-to-count conversion has no lojban counterpart.

> The point I thought I was trying to make originally about that was
> that linguists now locate the distinction not in noun phrases
> (gadri or at least whole sumti) but in verb phrases and that, for
> Lojban, this seemed a perfectly useful way to operate, with the
> assumption that the subject of such verb phrases would probably be
> collectivist _loi_ expressions.

Could you explain further? I'm not familiar with the discussions
you're referring to. (And I can't think what you mean, for to tell
whether a common noun is mass or count, you don't have to find a
verb.)

> and:
> Your [=Jorge's] understanding of {loe}, we arrived at with much blood
> sweat & tears [& tho it makes sense I can't believe it was the intention
> when loe was invented (and I believe there to have been no
> intelligent reason behind the addition of {lee})].
> pc:
> Well, what IS this hard-won understanding?  I can make no sense
> of xorxes' examples, but that is largely because of the added
> problem of opacity.  Archetype? (best example or something in the
> realm of ideas?)

Something very similar to your "average" (which I now think shd be
given to {lee}), as in "The average adult has 2.4 children".

It treats all members of the class of brodas as the same individual;
whereas porridgification ignores individuals' boundaries, myopic
singularization (= meaning of {loe}) ignores individuals'
haecceities [a word I'd never have dreamed of using in public, had
you not done so the other day!].

Here's stuff I've recently posted:
> Myopic singularization involves identifying every member of the
> category with every other member, i.e. failing to recognize the
> differences between them.
> 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".
---
And