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Nick:
> cu'u la xorxes
[...]
> But I'm sorry: I'm not going to say
> much else on generics (which is what formal semanticists call this kind
> of thing) until I've read what the formal semanticists did say about
> generics in the '70s. Just because some 70s linguist said something
> doesn't make it true or relevant to Lojban; but I am too busy to
> reinvent the wheel. And pace And, I think that's why jboske has been so
> tortuous
If we all agreed to consult the literature, things would be well cool.
Stuff that I've said about generics has been based on my reading of
work on generics, though admittedly none of it was formal semantics.
But I'm not sure that generics really are the bread and butter of
formal semantics, unlike strictly logical elements of meaning.
It's not often been the case that I have felt the need to go away
and consult the literature to resolve jboske issues. I did get to
that point with the discussion of interrogatives, but my initial
attempt to consult the lit was thwarted and in the end we came up
with a satisfactory analysis before I got round to trying again.
But I would take it as a legitimate debating move to insist that
the literature be consulted before an issue is decided. But we have
to realize that linguists' analyses don't neatly translate into
Lojban ones. For example, linguists may be trying to do more than
capture the meaning of a construction; they may be trying to
model it in a way homomorphic with the syntax. And Jboske tends
to want something similar too.
> As it is, we mean different things by squinting; it's And's metaphor,
> so I'm the one who misappropriated it. But like I say, I am not going
> to get into more typical jboske argling on this without doing my
> homework first
You came up with the term 'squinting'. But yes, it was my metaphor
as way of capturing how a manysome can be seen as a onesome, or
how a concept of a onesome can be derived from a concept of a
manysome.
I would say the most relevant literature here is from prototype theory,
which I believe you are far from ignorant of.
> >> And as Adam said, they can
> >> legitimately be corrected; they can't with {le'e}
> >
> > But {le'e} is a different thing, it is about a specific set
> > {le'i merko}. Here we only use the sense of {merko} to help
> > us identify a specific set we have in mind
>
> We're still talking at cross-purposes. A claim about le'e X is
> subjective, because the subject knows which particular Americans (and
> construct thereof) they have in mind. It is a different thing; that's
> my point. And I think that lo'e makes pretensions to objectivity which
> le'e doesn't, and that's the distinction between them
This is using 'subjective' and 'objective' in a drastically different
way from how I intended them when introducing them into the debate.
I actually don't see e-gadri as subjective in any of the usual
senses of the term. It is no more or less subjective than any
referential term. Is "him" subjective? Is "ko'a" subjective? I
don't find it helpful to call them 'subjective'. 'Referential' or
'context-dependent' or some other term would be less confusing.
> >> Jorge's intensional box is also a phantom; but unlike the 'typical
> >> box', there is an expectation that it will be instantiated by a real
> >> box (you'll eventually find one); and that box will have a colour:
> >>
> >> .i mi nitcu lo'ei tanxe
> >> .i xu su'o da zo'u da skari ri
> >> .i go'i fa da kaunai
> >>
> >> The "fill in a blank here" box does have a colour; it's just
> >> unspecified and uninstantiated. There's no na'i about it
> > Very interesting use of {kau}! Can you explain the {nai} there?
> > I would have just used {makau} for "whatever colour"
>
> kaunai means that the value is not known, and not instantiated; but is
> known to exist and be unique {da}. Is it odd to use {kau} like that?
> When we say {da kau go'i}, we say that the value is known and is
> instantiated, but just isn't communicated. When you're asking for a
> box, you know that whatever box satisfies the request will be a
> specific, concrete box, and so will have a colour. What colour that
> will be, noone knows yet; it is, after all, intensionally defined. When
> you know who killed the butler (kauja'ai), OTOH, there's nothing
> intensional and fluffy there: the killer of the butler has a denotation
> known to at least one person
>
> (I've used ja'ai. Truly the end times are upon us...)
If you can find the time to write a short exposition of this, I'd
be grateful. It's some years since I last noticed someone use {da kau},
and even then my recollection is of it being intended as a focalizing
construction.
--And.