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So where do we stand?Where we stand is, we have getting close to a dozen singularisations in Lojban, each subtly different. We have had conflations between them, which I regard as pernicious, because they foment confusion. (John has been responsible for some, Jorge for others.) We do not want 10 singularisations in Lojban, and if we're stuck with them, we want ways of neutralising them by default. This may not always be possible.
Before I go on, reporting back from Carlson's paper on English Generic plurals. (I'm going through a "best of" Formal Semantics anthology; it makes sense for me to stick with them, since these are arguably the papers that have determined how formal linguists approach these things.) Carlson doesn't have an ontology. He doesn't need to, he's a linguist not a philosopher. But the way he addressed generics was by positing a three-way hierarchy (and I'm making this more coherent than he did). We have kinds of things; then, individual things; then, avatars of things. Kinds of things are neither space nor time delimited. Individuals are space delimited but not time delimited. Avatars are both space and time delimited. Generic claims are claims made of the kind, and are comparable to claims made of named individuals. (John walks; Dogs run.) Specific claims are made of avatars (John is running = The John of right now is walking; Dogs are barking = The Dogs of right here and right now are barking).
So for these singularisations, we'd need to be able to say whether they are kinds, individuals, or avatars. Or that the classes are inapplicable. And we'll really know where we stand when we work out test phrases that distinguish between the various singularisations, in terms of what can or cannot be claimed of one or the other.
Anyway, we have as candidate singularisations: Set of x Mass of x Group of x Mode of x (my Typical) Stereotype of x Prototype of x Any-xThe any-x (I want a doctor, any doctor --- Jorge's lo'e) is really just a trick of scoping, though. If you're looking for a doctor, Lojban does already solve that for you by introducing a lambda abstraction: {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce}. If we could say {mi nitcu leka ce'u mikce} and get away with it, and the same for all gismu, we'd be OK. And we wouldn't be asking whether this doctor is the same as {loi mikce} (which it mostly is) or {lo'e mikce} (whatever lo'e is).
It seems that the prototype is how you recognise doctordom, if you go looking with the prototype doctor in mind, you'll find an instance (an individual of the kind.) But this doctor isn't really singulated, is it? You can look for two doctors quite sensibly: {mi sisku leka ce'uxi1 jo'u ce'uxi2 mikce} (assuming that ce'uxi1 != ce'uxi2). When you look for Doctor that's been through the Universal Grinder, the notion of two doctors is irrelevant.
(The Universal Grinder is a favoured trick of formal linguists, to convert individuals into masses: "there was doctor all over the road." If mass is distinct from group --- and I strongly believe it is --- then this Doctor is mass.)
That's why I still prefer something like {jaika}, {se ka}, {poi'i}, or whatever else is on offer. I don't buy that this doctor I'm looking for is singularised the way Prototypes and Masses are. And I also don't buy that looking for x such that x is a doctor is the same as walking around with a prototype in your head, and seeing if the things you come across are in Wittgenstein family relationship with it. That may be what we're doing psychologically; but if {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce} is legitimate, and we want a means of expressing that more generally, that's not what what {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce} is saying. {mi sisku leka ce'u mikce} is saying you're walking around with a lambda expression, seeing what fits it and what doesn't, yes-no. When you need something, you also need x such that x fits the slot, yes-no. You're not looking for a chimera. And prototypes are mental constructs and chimeras. And I believe conflating the Any-X (what I call this lambda thing) and the other singularisations is a pernicious act; even if logically it works (which I doubt), it is too confusing to countenance.
So: yes to being able to express the any-x succinctly. No to conflating it with the other singularisations on the market, and the prototype in particular. No to conflating it with the mass of x, although very frequently they will end up equivalent in context. Maybe to coming up with a novel gadri for it; I think it would be better for Lojban if we end up with something like {se ka} or {poi'i} instead, though, because I want to be able to see the ce'u.
Of masses and groups: when Yoko marries John, I would claim she's marrying the mass of Beatles, but not the group the Beatles. Whereas when John writes Strawberry Fields, the Beatls does write it. The difference, surely, is the realisation of corporate identity. The Mass of the Beatles is this sludge os Beatledom, which has no intellectual control over when to regard itself as The Beatles and when not. The group The Beatles is a corporate, rational entity: people decide whether they're writing a song as a Beatle or as a solo artist.
Most instances of such group/mass singularisations will not be rational: bits of sugar doesn't get a say in whether they solo artists or part of the group. Likewise, indeed, if I claim {loi remna cu mabru}, individual people don't het the choice of being considered mammals as solo artists or as part of the collective. So if this is the distinction between groups and masses, the default goes to masses.
I retract my Typical lo'e, since it's clearly not what even Bob and John wanted. I retract my understanding of squinting: squinting means that the singularisation is derived from the individuals, by effacing their differences, but clearly a prototype is a definition of the class, which you come into the game already equipped with. You're not deriving the prototype from the indivduals, you're classifying the individuals on the basis of the prototype.
I think the claims that {lo'e cipni} is a universal human concept, not a culture-specific construct, are very risky. But this is a popular train of thought, and people should be allowed to say it. Those who ideologically object to it (I'm convinced xod would, and I think I will) can simply refuse to use it.
I hate this. But is this-all helping? -- **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** * Dr Nick Nicholas, French & Italian Studies nickn@hidden.email * University of Melbourne, Australia http://www.opoudjis.net * "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the * circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson, * _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987. * **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****