WikiDiscuss

---

wrote:

>
> --- John E Clifford wrote:
> > I am afraid I don't quite follow what is
> going on
> > here. I gather that you want "refer" to have
> > some special sense, involving perhaps
> > identification or specification or whatever.
>
> No, just the usual sense as far as I can tell.
> Terms that start with a gadri have referents.
> Quantifiers are bridi operators that say how
> many
> of the referents of the term they quantify
> satisfy
> the bridi the term is in.

You said
<<If you want to refer to five of the things just
referred
to, then {lo mu lo bakni} for example would
serve. If you
don't want to refer to them, but you want to say
that exactly
five of those just referred to do something or
other, then
{mu lo bakni} would be appropriate.>>

The difference between referring to five of the
things just referred to and saying that five of
the things just referred to do something or other
is the distinction I am trying to get a grip on.
I don't know how one says that five of the things
do something or other without referring to them
nor can I see any likely point in referring to
five of these guys without saying that they do
(or are) something or other.

> > Could you give an example of the difference.
> We
> > have some sentence involving {lo bakni},
> > referring to some group of things related to
> > cows.
>
> _Related_ to cows? {lo bakni} refers to cows,
> not to things related to cows.

I am just going by the lesson which is meant to
explain what the Hell "generic reference" is all
about. I see that that example was changed in the
latest version of that page, thus making the
notion of generic reference again obscure but
less hopelessly stupid.

> > I want to say that five of those things do
> > such and such.
>
> ko'a goi lo mu lo bakni cu broda
>
> > And have said that, I want to go
> > on and say some more things about those five.
>
>
> ko'a brode

Well, the interesting case would be one that used
a full form rather than a pronoun. Suppose
that, when I said {lo mu lo bakni cu broda} I had
not decided to say more about them and so had not

{ko'a}d. What would {mu lo bakni cu broda} say?

> > Do
> > I use {mu lo bakni} both times or {lo mu lo
> > bakni} both times
>
> The latter, preferrably linking them with a
> pronoun
> if it's the same five cows both times.
>
> > or the short form the first
> > time and the long form the second
>
> You could do that. You would not be referring
> to those five
> cows the first time, you would just be saying
> exactly how
> many out of the lot do something or other. Then
> the second
> time pragmatically one would assume that the
> five cows you
> are talking about are the ones that make the
> first sentence
> true.

AHAH. {mu lo bakni} is not a reference (as in
older Lojban) to a bunch of five cows drawn from
the bunch referred to by {lo bakni} but something
less somehow — it tells howmany there are and
what they do but without referring to them. How
should the second reference to (well, the first

• reference* but the second indication of)these

five cows be expressed in full form? I find this
reading of {lo} perverse — but you know that.

> > (or, I suppose, conversely)?
>
> That would not have the same pragmatic
> implication, I would
> say.