WikiDiscuss

Posted by pycyn on Tue 09 of Aug, 2005 00:01 GMT posts: 2388

> + * There are no default quantifiers. At all.
> For example, the default outer quantifier of
> "lo" used to be "su'o", which means "at least
> one", but that is no longer the case. "lo
> cribe" could be one, or a billion, or the idea
> of bear-ness (as in "bears like honey"), or
> bear goo (as in after a car accident involving
> a really, really big truck).

There are some problems (more or less well dealt
with by distinguishing collective, distributive,
and individual predication) with allowing {lo
cribe} to refer to bearness in the way it refers
to bears and, in any case, that would not be a
good way to say that bears like honey. On the
other hand, {lo cribe} does refer to bearness or
something like it directly and bears only
secondarily. That is, claims about bears are
claims involving distributive or collective
predication to the referent of {lo cribe}, claims
about bearness involve individual predication to
the refernt of {lo cribe}. To be sure, Lojban
has no explicit marks for these different kinds
of predication (as also not for the various
modalities like "generally")which, consequently
have to be discovered by context and, when
contexts fails to give the right reading, by
lengthy circumlocutions to what was intended.
Better not to confuse the issue right now by
mentioning bearness at all.
The same applies to bear goo, for which {lo
cribe} is not a good device — givne its other
uses. At the best, {loi cribe} would seem called
for, and {loi cribe pagbu} or {loi cribe spisa}
would be clearer.

> * A side effect of the above is that in xorlo,
> if you mean "one bear", consider actually
> saying "pa cribe". It's ever so much more
> specific. xorxes points out that to refer to
> one bear, "lo pa cribe" is actually a bit
> better; "pa cribe cu broda" means that exactly
> one cribe in the whole world brodas, which is
> often not what you want. We (those of us that
> have actually been using xorlo for the last few
> months; there are at least half a dozen active
> users on #lojban now) have found that context
> is almost always sufficient, however.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> The new page content follows below.
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>
> ! About xorlo
>
> "xorlo" is our (the baupla fuzykamni's) pet
> name for the gadri (articles, like "the" and
> "a" in English) BPFK proposal written mostly by
> xorxes. It has the advantage of being a
> gismu form. The gadri
> proposal (which has now been accepted by a
> vote of 11 to 0 by the BPFK, although it is
> technically subject to future changes until we
> declare ourselves done) is quite complete, but
> rather full of technical jargon.
>
> Also, it's the biggest change we (the BPFK)
> have made to the language, and, God willin' and
> the creek don't rise, the biggest one we'll
> ever make. By far.
>
> Hence, a tutorial seems prudent.
>
> Something that needs to be noted in general:
> we, the BPFK, made a consensus decision that we
> do not make rulings on ontological or
> metaphysical issues; that is, we will not tell
> you whether phrase X has meaning or validity.
> That is discussion and speaker specific, and
> not our job. In some discussions, saying "mi
> kalte pa lo pavyseljirna" (which litterally
> means "there exists one thing that is a unicorn
> that I am hunting"; this implies that at least
> one unicorn exists) is perfectly reasonable, in
> others it's a reason to put someone in a mental
> hospital. In a similar vein, "lo" is now
> completely generic. This means that there
> are going to be disagreements about how broad
> it can be. For example, I think that "bear
> goo" is perfectly validly "lo cribe". Arnt
> does not. That's OK, albeit somewhat obnoxious
> should I ever need to talk about "bear
> goo". Of course, I can just use "lo pesxu be
> lo cribe".
>
> !! General Notes
>
> If you choose to read the proposal itself,
> there are a couple of things you should know.
> If you just want the high-level overview, and
> have no intention of reading the proposal, skip
> this section.
>
> * "distributively" means "not as a group", and
> is a term we owe largely to
> McKay,
> whom we should give money to or something.
> (xorxes says that we were using it before him;
> I still think it helped). Basically, "three
> men carried the piano" when handled
> distributively means that they each carried
> it. lo, le, and la are all distributive. The
> outer quantifier of loi, lei and lai is
> distributive over groups of number indicated by
> the inner quantifier.
> * "non-distributively" means "as a group".
> "Three men carried the piano" when handled
> non-distributively means that they all did it.
> * There are no default quantifiers. At all.
> For example, the default outer quantifier of
> "lo" used to be "su'o", which means "at least
> one", but that is no longer the case. "lo
> cribe" could be one, or a billion, or the idea
> of bear-ness (as in "bears like honey"), or
> bear goo (as in after a car accident involving
> a really, really big truck).
> * A side effect of the above is that in xorlo,
> if you mean "one bear", consider actually
> saying "pa cribe". It's ever so much more
> specific. xorxes points out that to refer to
> one bear, "lo pa cribe" is actually a bit
> better; "pa cribe cu broda" means that exactly
> one cribe in the whole world brodas, which is
> often not what you want. We (those of us that
> have actually been using xorlo for the last few
> months; there are at least half a dozen active
> users on #lojban now) have found that context
> is almost always sufficient, however.
>
> !! lo
>
> lo is where the biggest changes occured. In
> fact, it's fair to say that everything but the
> changes to lo (and to default quantification)
> were mere clarifications. Here's how lo works
> now:
>
> * lo is the default gadri; if in doubt, use lo
> * lo with no outer or inner quantifier is
> absolutely generic; "lo broda" means
> "something(s) or other to do with broda", and
> that's about it. Thankfully, context is plenty
> 99% of the time. Expect to see a lot more lo!
> * In particular, you almost always want "lo nu"
> rather than "le nu". "lo nu" is "some event of
> ...", "le nu" is "some particular event of ...
> that I have in mind".
> * lo with an outer quantifier, which is exactly
> the same thing as just sticking a number before
> an item (i.e. "mu lo bakni" == "mu bakni" ==
> "five cows), works pretty much as before: "five
> things that really are cows".
> * lo's inner quantifier indicates the number if
> things we're talking about, but in a slightly
> different fashion. "mu lo bakni cu bevri lo
> pipno" means "Five cows each carried a piano
> individually". "lo mu bakni cu bevri lo pipno"
> is ambiguous as to whether they did it
> individually or as a group. To be clear about
> group-ness, use loi and friends.
> * The above is actually a substantial change;
> "lo mu bakni cu bevri lo pipno" used to mean
> "All the cows in the universe, of which there
> are 5, carry the piano". That sucked. It is
> still possible to say the above in xorlo, but I
> don't remember the easy way off the top of my
> head; someone please replace this with an
> example of that.
>
> !! le
>
>
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Posted by pycyn on Tue 09 of Aug, 2005 00:01 GMT posts: 2388

> - * There are no default quantifiers. At all.
> For example, the default outer quantifier of
> "lo" used to be "su'o", which means "at least
> one", but that is no longer the case. "lo
> cribe" could be one, or a billion, or none
> (although expect listener hostility!!), or the
> idea of bear-ness (as in "bears like honey"),
> or bear goo (as in after a car accident
> involving a really, really big truck).
> + * There are no default quantifiers. At all.
> For example, the default outer quantifier of
> "lo" used to be "su'o", which means "at least
> one", but that is no longer the case. "lo
> cribe" could be one, or a billion, or the idea
> of bear-ness (as in "bears like honey"), or
> bear goo (as in after a car accident involving
> a really, really big truck).

Dropping the "none" provision for {lo cribe}
creates some small problems, particularly in
intensional contexts (as it were). If {mi djica
lo pavyseljirna} is meant to be true and {djica2}
is not to be learned as an unmarked opaque place
-- as xorxes clearly does not want to do — then
the sentence must be able to be true when there
are no unicorns (the extension {i ku'i lo
pavyseljirna na zasti} is compatible with the the
sentence given). On the other hand, of course,
{lo cribe cu danlu} should not be true if there
are bears and none of them are animals. Perhaps
that distinction needs to be noted.