WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


BPFK Section: Inexact Numbers

posts: 2388


wrote:

>
> pc:
> > > I don't use quantifiers for unquantified
> terms.
> >
> > But what terms are quantified is a matter of
> > interpretation.
>
> If the term has a PA in front, it is
> quantified.
> If the term does not have a PA in front it is
> not.
> That's all the interpretation that's required,
> the
> way I see it.

Well, in CLL at least (and matchingly in the real
world) every description, whether explicitly
quantified or not involves at least one
quantifier. On the other hand, on one way of
matching up with McKay's system, most quantifiers
on descriptions would not actually be quantifiers
at all, but predicates: "is Q in number" or "is
the Q of." The logical language idea was to put
as much logic as possible as overtly as possible
-- subject to the requirements of a spoken
language. From these came the use of descriptors
in place of overt quantifiers (there is precedent
for this in logic, of course).

> .
> > {lo rozgu
> > cu xunre} without context is particular, not
> > general — almost exactly what your second
> > definition has it be.
>
> I tend to take any out of the blue sentence as
> general.
> I'm not sure why you say it has to be
> otherwise.

I don't say it has to be otherwise. I just take
sentences out of the blue to be about particular
events. So, when you seem to say it has to be
otherwise, I beg to disagree.

> > > The obvious ones in some context might be
> roses
> > > in general.
> >
> > But those aren't ones in any context. Roses
> in
> > general are just (like typical roses) about
> the
> > general situation with particular roses in
> each.
>
> That's your take on things, we are obviously
> not going
> to agree about that.

I am trying to understand what you want instead,
but every time I try something that might work
for one of your ideas, if fails on another
sometimes batting back and forth like a
shuttlecock in a hot game: it is not quantifiers
nor species nor properties (with interpetation
rules). That about exhausts my supply of
possible meanings for things like "generic
reference" or "roses in general (but not general
remarks about various real roses)." I tend to
think about this point that this is just
feel-good words that do not — and cannot — have
any concrete meaning behind them. I am probably
wrong about this, but the evidence to the
contrary has never been forthcoming.


> > > Maybe your ontology is too restrictive.
> >
> > Maybe. How would you expand it — keeping
> with
> > things , not with mere forms of words.
>
> Roses are things. We've been here, I suspect we
> won't be getting
> anywhere this time either.

Roses are indeed things, particular concrete
things, that we want to say general things about.
You seem to want some other kind of roses
altogether, general roses about which we say
particular things, e.g., that they are red.
I would see that claim as one about ordinary
roses in a not well worked out, but fairly well
understood, modality: "generally." The not well
worked out part has to do with how many roses we
have to examine to determine whether the claim is
true (not that it will be a fixed number — and
distribution will count as well). Nothing else
will matter. But I don't know where to find a
general rose nor what to do with it. If
examining it or them will give me the same
information as examining a number of roses, then,
while they are a convenient shortcut, they are
really unnecessary. If they give different
information, then they are irrelevant, since they
don't tell me about ordinary roses.

> > > > How would you verify {lo rozgu cu xunre}?
>
> > > In what context?
> >
> > I assume that you mean it here as a general
> claim
> > about roses. You apparently mean something
> by it
> > other than that there are red roses (which is
> > easy to verify), but it is not clear what
> more.
>
> "Roses are red" in English does not just mean
> that
> there are red roses.
>
Well, it means very different things in different
contexts, but the broad outline is something
along the line that a plurality of rose (or, more
likely, a plurality of rose cultivar) blossoms
are in the red line (red, pink, orange, yellow,
whites off in these directions). So we whip out
our Jackson & Perkins or the Rosarian registry
and check. Sometimes, of course, the English
sentence just means that some roses are — in
response to a clueless person who believes that
roses come only in colors other than red.
Sometimes it means (a case that Lojban can
handle) that the typicla (or even stereotypical)
rose is red. And so on. Lojban would presumably
like to have different means of exressing each of
these different claims. To be sure, it probably
also wants one that is not so determinate, and
maybe {lo rozgu cu xunre} is that — but that
doesn't mean that it does not have rules for
figuring out whether it is true or not (the first
part of the rule may well be to divide its
various senses if it is ambiguous or look toward
precising if it is vague). But {lo rozgu cu
xunre} is not limited to taht use; it does
perfectly well as the beginning of a story about
a totally particular event — a date, say.