WikiDiscuss

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wrote:

>
> pc:
> > Well, in CLL at least (and matchingly in the
> real
> > world) every description, whether explicitly
> > quantified or not involves at least one
> > quantifier.
>
> In CLL, yes. CLL does not allow constant terms
> (in theory),
> every term according to CLL is quantified, even
> names. That is
> the important difference between the proposed
> definitions and CLL.
> (I don't understand what you mean by "and
> matchingly
> in the real world". Reference, description,
> quantification
> are all theoretical constructs.)

Well, yes and no. The point is that in the real
world things come singly and each or several of
them do something to accomplish what we say
happens. What we say may be vague in a variety
of ways, but what happens is not. But however
vague our talk may be, it has to hook up with
what happens in some way and thus has to take
account of the fact that every event involves
some number of things. Whatever we say is then
going to reflect this some how, at the risk of
not saying anything about the world or saying
impossible things.

> > Roses are indeed things, particular concrete
> > things, that we want to say general things
> about.
>
> Yes. And sometimes we may want to say
> particular things
> about them too. For example:
>
> - Tell me something about roses.
> - Roses? My grandmother loved them. She used to
> buy
> them from the flowershop at the corner.

Of course, but how do we do this in Lojban if we
are allowed only general things. The roses your
grandmother loved were particular roses, scented,
thorny, and the liek, not generic roses --
whatever those are. hey were not identified,
perhaps (though some may have been) and she may
even have been indifferent to whihc roses they
were, but they were particular ones each time she
bought some.

> > You seem to want some other kind of roses
> > altogether, general roses about which we say
> > particular things, e.g., that they are red.
>
> Roses in general are not general roses,
> whatever these
> are. So no, I don't want to speak of any
> particular
> kind of roses when I speak of roses in general.

I think you mean any specific roses. Every rose
is particular, but specificity is about our
language not about the roses. We can identify a
rose only as a rose, without getting specific,
and then we take it as a type, or we can stop
short of even that and just say general things
about roses. But it is still ordinary roses we
are talking aobut; we are just talking aboout
them in a general way. This has nothing to do
with reference; it is bout context frames
perhaps, within which identification is
abrogated.

> > 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).
>
> Do you propose that as a general strategy for
> {lo broda},
> or as an explanation of English generics that
> we can't
> replicate in Lojban?

Well, as you know, I think {lo broda} is just a
quantified expression (not equivalent to {su'o
da}, howver, which is more complex) and that
takes care of generality or particularity
depending on context and usage. For general
contexts, the quantifiers involved tend to be
pretty vague (typically more than "most" and less
than "all") with details coming in from further
context. But what the cointexts fills in is how
we go about answering the question "is this claim
true?" Will a not even very random sample do or
is more research needed, where is the
cost/benefit break in research — and in
confirming or denying, for that matter.

> > > "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.
>
> It certainly does. It all depends on the
> context.

If you agree to that, then you will concede that
your first definition (second too but for
different reasons) is just wrong. {lo} is not
generic in the sense you seem to want, though it
can be used in that way (there is as you know an
argument that quantifier expression are better
for this purpose than descriptions because they
are less likely to be drawn into merely local
application). It can be used in any number of
ways. At most these ways share the feature of
being inspecific, just what we would expect from
the usual contrast with the specific {le} — a
contrast omitted in your second definition and
misstated in the first.
It does seem to me that you will be hard pressed
-- as indeed you have been — to account for
actual generalizing usage in terms of other usage
(your "formal definitions") and, indeed, in
saying much more about it even in English than to
point to typical English cases which some
particular Lojban parallels. Starting by
locating the generalizing in the form of the
description seems a particularly bad start, since
that is not where it is (although, of course,
{le} is not a good descriptor to use in
gneralizing sentences).