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Some forwarded messages from the "le'i, le, lei, le'e, lo'i, lo, loi, lo'e" thread

For Jordan I'm forwarding some earlier messages from me to
xorxes about the appropriacy conditions for use of the
gadri.
--- Begin Message --- 
xorxes:
> la and cusku di'e
> 
> >The case made for {tu'o} included:
> >
> >1. We don't want to *claim* that lo'i broda cu pa mei. We want
> >to treat it as presupposition 
> >
> >2. We simply don't want to have to arbitrarily choose among
> >redundant contrasts: e-gadri vs. o-gadri, V-gadri vs. Vi-gadri 
> >
> >3. Given that one reason to mark singularity is to make the
> >meaning easier to process, it is counterproductive to have to
> >do this by adding an extra word (pa) 
> >
> >loi'e/lo'e satisfies (1-3) 
> 
> I understand that was your case for {tu'o}, but mine
> was just:
> 
> 4. We are not interested in looking at the extension of
> {lo'i broda}, or even in whether or not there is an
> extension 

Okay. But in all cases I have so far encountered, these "intensional
claims" can all be paraphrased by an extensional one, and indeed
that is the only way that I am currently capable of making sense
of them. So I have no yen at all for (4), and am quite flummoxed
when faced with your & Adam's yen for it.
 
> > > If pointing out the
> > > singletonhood is important, it is proper to have to add the inner
> > > {pa} 
> >
> >No, for reason 3 in particular 
> 
> I meant "pointing out the instrinsic singletonhood". I do want
> an article just for singletons (I use {le} for that) but I don't
> want to have to work out whether my description is fine enough
> that it necessarily corresponds to a singleton: I don't want to
> have to choose one gadri for "my hand" and a different one
> for "my nose" or "my left hand". If I understood you correctly
> you would say {le'e mi xance} vs. {lo'e mi zunle xance}, because
> "my hand" corresponds to an in-mind singleton but "my left hand"
> corresponds to a real-world singleton. I don't think this
> distinction deserves to be obligatory 

A good point. How about provisionally calling this {pa'ei}...
It differs from {le pa} in not implicating the inapplicability
of {lo pa}.

I'm very delighted, by the way, that my campaign to undo the 
anti-'malglico' prejudice against Number is gaining ground. The
concept of malglico is more often pernicious than beneficial.

> > > {lau} would make sense as a singular gadri in my opinion
> > > only if it was also +specific, so that you could also use it
> > > for singleton in-mind sets 
> >
> >But le'e is completely satisfactory for this job, except perhaps
> >in its disyllabicity, which is really a symptom of a much more
> >pervasive problem 
> 
> Yes. I would use {le'e} for all singletons if it was a single
> syllable, including intrinsic singletons. That's where we still
> differ. I don't see the advantage of separating in-mind
> singletons from intrinsic singletons, unless it is somehow
> important in a particular case to claim that the thing I'm
> referring to is the only thing I could be referring to with
> the description I happen to be using 

I think it is very useful to be able to distinguish le'e/lei'e on
the one hand from lo'e/loi'e and {lo pa} on the other. The latter
says that the description alone is sufficient to identify the
referent, while former says that the description alone is not
sufficient to identify the referent. But I accept also that there
is a need for pa'ei, which says that the description may or may
not be sufficient to identify the referent.

(Regarding Adam's lau'au, I now think that it is not usefully
different from lo pa (= lo'e pa = loi pa), so I don't support
it.)

It seems to me that if the baseline offers no way to assign the
shortest cmavo to the most frequently needed cmavo, then that
counts as serious brokenness, because we know that people are
not prepared to pay the price of longwindedness to say exactly
what they mean, when they can say something different from what
they really mean but shorter and can still be perfectly well 
understood (by a community of other speakers who all do likewise).

This is such a serious problem that I am loath to propose ad hoc
piecemeal solutions. But one ad hoc piecemeal solution might be
to define bare {le} as equivalent to {pa'ei}, and replace old
{le} by an experimental, {ru'oi} (< ro le su'o). {le} with an
inner or outer quantifier would keep its old meaning. For those
fazed by the irregularity could avoid using {le} with an inner
or outer quantifier and use {ru'oi} instead.

This is definitely against the spirit of the baseline, but in its
defence it is also a place where I feel strongly that the baseline
is broken.

--And.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
This is an interesting message. Don't be put off by the length.

Xorxes:
> This is an attempt to analyse my use of the Lojban gadri 
> I am not suggesting that this is how they should be used,
> I'm just trying to figure out how I do use them 

Let me do the same, in this commentary. Until recently, my
usage has largely been notional -- that is, I had clear ideas
about how I would use the gadri if I did use them. I've
recently actually been writing more than the occasional
sentence or two, though.
 
> First, let's consider in-mind sets. In the majority
> of cases, in-mind sets are singleton sets 
> 
> In the case of singleton sets, le=lei=le'e. Referring
> to the members of the in-mind set one by one, or to all
> of them together, or to myopically singularize them makes
> no difference, it is always just the one member 
> 
> In the case of singleton in-mind sets I always use {le} 
> The reason for the choice, which in principle is completely
> arbitrary between le/lei/le'e, is that {le} is the least
> marked morphologically. If I had a choice, I would make
> {le'e} the least marked and consequently use it for
> in-mind singletons, but as things stand, I prefer {le} 

I use {le'e}.

I too would make {le'e} the least marked, if I could, but I
don't think we can really criticize the current assignments
for lack of foresight. With hindsight, I think that what the
designers should have done is assign no monosyllabic cmavo at
all: all cmavo should have been disyllabic. Then, once the
language had matured, monosyllabic cmavo could be assigned to
the most frequent. This would also have helped to ensure that
usage was guided more by meaning and less by mere syllable
counting. I recently been thinking about proposing to reserve
certain disyllabic cmavo as counterparts of monosyllabic cmavo,
so that a global search-and-replace can be done that makes all
cmavo of equal length (i.e. all disyllabic).

At any rate, I feel a duty to ignore cmavo length, because if
you don't it means that relatively (and unavoidable) arbitrary
or ignorant decisions made be the designers long ago are
affecting usage now, with the result that usage is not a pure
reflection of what we actually would wish to say.

> That choice of always using {le} for singleton in-mind
> categories has consequences. The first consequence is
> that when using {lei} (or {le'e}, which I hardly ever
> use) this signals a plural in-mind set. If it was a
> singleton set, I would use {le}, so when I use {lei},
> even though in theory it need not be a plural set, in
> practice it always is 

For me, {le} and {lei} signal plural in-mind sets. Because there
is no lo'e/le'e counterpart of LA, I take {lai} as the singular,
because at least masses are singular and unquantified. So {la}
and {le} are the most marked.

> The second consequence is that because singleton in-mind
> sets are so frequent, when there is an occasion to use
> a non-singleton in mind set distributively, {le} tends to
> feel inadequate. How do I make sure it is not taken as a
> singleton in this particular occasion? One possibility
> would be to use {le su'o re}, but I never do that. 

I would just use {le}, of course. {le za'u} is better than
{le su'o re}, if only because it makes plurality less arbitrary
({su'o re} makes it seem no more special than {su'o ci}). I
would use {za'u broda} for plural nonspecifics.

> In most
> such cases I use {ro le}. In theory {le} = {ro le}. In
> practice I never use {ro le} for {ro le pa}, it would
> sound strange, so {ro le} normally implicates {le su'o re} 
> Sometimes I do use plain {le} for non-singleton in-mind
> sets, but this is rare. I also find it rare in the usage
> of others. If {le'e} were my default choice for singletons,
> then the use of {le} would automatically signal plural in
> the same way that {lei} does 

Good for you!

> I'm not sure why I almost never use {le'e}. It may be that
> I use {lo'e} sometimes when I should use {le'e}, or that
> it is just not a very frequent meaning. I don't know 

In my Earnest translation so far:

total lo'e (loi'e)        208
   before du'u/ka             102
   elsewhere                  106
lo                         48
loi                         6
le'e (lei'e)               61
le                          2 (both {su'o le}
lei                         9
lo'i                        3
le'i                        0

Pretty interesting, eh?

> Now what about {lo'i} cases? Unlike the cases for le'i, most
> lo'i are not singletons. 

True in terms of sets of things in the universe, but surprisingly
not true in terms of sets of thing we talk about. (E.g. {lo'e do
mamta}.)

> In the exceptional cases when they
> are singletons, we have that lo=loi=lo'e(=le=lei=le'e). They
> are equal to the {le} cases if we ignore veridicality. There
> is no specificity distinction possible when lo'i is a singleton 
> 
> So, again, when {lo'i} is a singleton I keep using {le} 
> In principle, any of the six articles would serve for
> these singleton categories. But, given that singleton
> categories are very frequent in in-mind sets and rare in
> general sets, it makes sense to choose one of the in-mind
> articles for this function and use it throughout, unless
> for some reason we want to emphasize that it is intrinsically
> a singleton category in which case {lo pa} (or {loi pa}, or
> {lo'e pa}, it makes no difference) would be appropriate 

I use lo'e here. I don't use lo or loi, because they imply that
the distributive/collective distinction is pertinent. I don't
use le'e/le/lei, because they imply that I'm selecting some
particular subset of lo'i.

> lo/loi/lo'e implicate a non-singleton lo'i in the same
> manner that {lei} does, just because I would be using
> {le} if lo'i were a singleton. So I never say {lo stedu
> be mi} if {lo'i stedu be mi} is a singleton. Even though
> in principle I could say it, I always prefer {le stedu
> be mi}. The consecuence is that {lo broda} and {loi broda}
> always implicate an underlying {lo'i su'o re broda}, and
> also {lo'e broda} implicates either {lo'i su'o re broda}
> or eventually {lo'i no broda}, if we accept that there are
> intensions with no extension 

This makes sense if {le} is your default. As it is, I agree on
everything except {lo'e} -- since {le} is not my default, it
makes sense to use {lo'e}, the gadri for singletones, when I
am referring to a singleton.
 
> This also justifies the use of {le du'u}, (at least if
> we interpret that {lo'i du'u <bridi>} is always a
> singleton) 

Indeed so. And likewise I use {lo'e du'u}.

In summary, my usage is better if you studiously avoid considerations
of morphological markedness. Your usage is better if morphological
markedness is an issue. We totally agree on everything but this
issue.

I think it is better to ignore morphological markedness when we are
road-testing the design, exploring it and finding ways to optimize
it within the constraints of the baseline.

In the long run we of course want a language where morphological
markedness exactly parallels semantic/discoursal markedness.

--And.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Adam:
> de'i li 2002-10-26 ti'u li 16:45:00 la'o zoi. Jorge Llambias .zoi cusku di'e
> 
> >The second consequence is that because singleton in-mind
> >sets are so frequent, when there is an occasion to use
> >a non-singleton in mind set distributively, {le} tends to
> >feel inadequate. How do I make sure it is not taken as a
> >singleton in this particular occasion?
> 
> If you are talking about in-mind sets which happen to be
> singleton, but which in principle need not be, I think
> that this is probably substratum influence on the way we 
> conceptualize 'le broda'. I think we should force ourselves
> to use bare, unmarked 'le broda' even when that is plural,
> and hopefully we will get used to evaluating it as possibly 
> plural. This would be made easier if 'le' ceased to be used 
> for inherently singleton sets (see below) 

I agree. {le'e} is the right one here.
 
> >So, again, when {lo'i} is a singleton I keep using {le} 
> >In principle, any of the six articles would serve for
> >these singleton categories. But, given that singleton
> >categories are very frequent in in-mind sets and rare in
> >general sets, it makes sense to choose one of the in-mind
> >articles for this function and use it throughout, unless
> >for some reason we want to emphasize that it is intrinsically
> >a singleton category in which case {lo pa} (or {loi pa}, or
> >{lo'e pa}, it makes no difference) would be appropriate 
> 
> <ultra-radical-proposal>
> 
> What we need is a gadri for inherently singleton categories, 
> to take the burden off of 'le'. Unfortunately any cmavo 
> experimental in form would not be morphologically unmarked, 
> so that would not be a good solution for you. Therefore, I 
> (tentatively) propose that 'lau' could be used for this, since 
> no one uses it in its official meaning, and could be defined
> thus:

Thank @*%$ you're only saying this on Jboske! 

Nick! Lojbab! Xod! Don't panic!

Basically, there's no point in proposing this unless you want 
there to be schism. If there was schism, I'd go with you, but
we don't want schism, do we?

We do seriously need to rack our brains about the general problem
of the waste of short cmavo and the lack of ways to make morphological
markedness mirror semantic/discoursal markedness. And I think there's
a real case to be made for reassigning long forms to wasted short
cmavo, so that their short forms can be reassigned come any future
baseline change. I'd be delighted if there was a groundswell of
opinion on this score.

But we can't just go reassigning lau! That's a blatant baseline
change.

> lau broda cu brode <--> 
> da zo'u 
> 	ge 
> 		ge da broda gi da brode 
> 	gi
> 		ro de zo'u
> 			go 
> 				de broda
> 			gi 
> 				de du da
> 
> i.e., Russell's iota operator or whatever it is called 
> 
> </ultra-radical-proposal>

A decent case has been made for using ''tu'o'' for this. Also ''lo'e''
will arguably suffice, though it isn't the same (because the second
clause after the first gi is not asserted by lo'e).

But okay, let's grant the desirability of a cmavo for this. But
we can't just go reassigning baselined cmavo. We need something
more ingenious.

--And.

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