WikiDiscuss

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> I have been raising this as a gadri issue only because
> in an ancestral version of xorlo it was treated as such
> and because that was the only solution I was ever
> satisfied was satisfactory. But I'm not trying to
> argue that xorlo needs to be altered.

The way I understand it, xorlo hasn't changed much in the
aspect we are discussing (but it's possible I'm still
missing something). The only significant change from
the old version has been the interpretation of the inner
quantifier with respect to the outer one: in the old
version the inner quantifier was the numerosity of each
value that the quantified variable takes, in the current
version it is the total number of values the quantified
variable takes.

For example, {mi nitcu lo mikce} and {mi nitcu
no lo mikce} are not compatible in either version.

> Suppose there are two statues of unicorns in front of me, and I
> draw them, and say "ta pixra re pavyseljirna ku noi zasti ta":
> that would be true, because the two drawees do exist in the
> same world as ta, even though in ta's world they aren't
> unicorns (-- they're statues). So we'd also want a way to
> express whether the drawees are unicorns in ta's world.

But that issue only arises if {ta pavyseljirna} has
two different readings. If we can say of the statue
that it is a unicorn, then the picture of the statue
is a picture of a unicorn. If we can't say that the
statue is a unicorn, then the picture of the statue
is not a picture of a unicorn.

CLL says:

(The notion of a ``really existing, objectively defined bear'' raises certain
difficulties. Is a panda bear a ``real bear''? How about a teddy bear? In
general, the answer is ``yes''. Lojban gismu are defined as broadly as
possible, allowing tanru and lujvo to narrow down the definition. There
probably are no necessary and sufficient conditions for defining what is and
what is not a bear that can be pinned down with complete precision: the real
world is fuzzy. In borderline cases, ``le'' may communicate better than
``lo''.)

I would add that in different contexts the boundaries can
be different. Once we decide whether in the given context
a statue of a unicorn counts as a unicorn, we know whether
the picture of the statue counts as a picture of a unicorn.

> > {ta pixra lo re pavyseljirna poi ranmi danlu} "that's a picture
> > of two unicorns which are mythological animals" and
> > {ta pixra lo re pavyseljirna poi ca'a zasti le ma'a munje}
> > "that's a picture of two unicorns that actually exist in
> > our world".
>
> The first seems okay, but the second doesn't, for two
> reasons. Firstly, one can have imaginary things that are defined
> as existing in the real world: "lo ca'a zasti le ma'a munje"
> needn't refer to something that exists in the real world;

This part I'm not sure I understand. Wouldn't an imaginary
(or fictional) thing be non-existent by definition?

> it might refer to "Mr Exister in the RW".

Mr Exister in the RW has to exist in the RW, that's in fact all
it needs to do.

> Secondly, what
> matters (with regard to disambiguation) is whether the
> depictee exists in the same world as the depicter (and
> whether the depictee has the property of being depicted
> in the same world as it has the property of unicornhood).

That would seem to require the marking of statements for
world of application, rather than the marking of sumti.

> I'm not saying that Lojban should handle this overtly in
> terms of different worlds. I am talking about different worlds
> only as a means of explicating the different readings we
> get with intensional sumti-places. And I'm suggesting that
> Lojbanists might want a robust way to express the readings
> distinctly on occasion. Is that reasonable?

How was the distinction handled in the ancestral version
according to you?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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