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Nick:
> 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
Unacknowledged conflations foment confusion. Acknowledged conflations
can build consensus and bring us closer to a feasible solution.
> 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)
Is 'avatar' your term or Carlson's? I thought he used 'stage'.
Anyway, FWIW, I don't find his hierarchy very helpful and I
particularly reject the delimitation by time and space criteria.
I can distinguish Nick-seen-from-the-front from Nick-seen-from-
behind (not time delimited), or Nick-in-a-good-mood from Nick-in-a-bad-
mood (discontinuously distributed in time).
I prefer to reduce the three-way classification to two: kind
and individual. Individuals are (or can be seen as) avatars (or
instances or members) of kinds. So when I talk about "avatars
of Nick", I am conceptualizing Nick as a kind. Uniques conceptualize
kinds as individuals.
> 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-x
>
> The 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)
You omit Unique, which has been endorsed by me, xorxes and xod.
I argued for conflating Mode and Prototype as Average. That is,
Average, a meaning to be assigned to a gadri, blurs the Mode/Prototype
distinction.
Any-x has not been seriously proposed. I did assign something like
it to lo'ei/le'ei, but that definition was really "xorxes's meaning,
which I don't understand". So Any-x should be discounted.
I support making the distinction between Mass and Group.
> 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.
{da poi'i ke'a broda} = {da broda}. {Poi'i} has no meaning. It is
just a syntactic device.
I think what you want is plain {ka}: that is the intension.
> 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
We should forget about Any-x. It is a red herring. It just happens
that an incidental property of Unique is that it nullifies opacity.
As for generalizing the sisku pattern, you already know I dislike it,
and think the djica pattern is the right one. But this should really
go into another thread. In this thread it is merely a distraction.
> 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
The logical way to get Any-x is to use an existential quantifier
within a subordinate bridi: I want to own any book = mi djica
loi nu mi ponse lo cukta.
But as I say, this belongs to another thread, and this any-x stuff
should be forgotten about in this discussion.
> Of masses and groups: when Yoko marries John, I would claim she's
> marrying the mass of Beatles, but not the group the Beatles.
"Yoko Ono married Beatle" -- yes, that works for me. So I agree
with you.
> 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
Sure. I have no problem distinguishing masses from groups. It's
just that all the talk of piano carrying, etc., has made me think
that loi/lei do groups, not masses, and that 'masses' was a misnomer.
> 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 don't understand this para.
> 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 agree.
> 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
Who is making these claims? And which meaning does {lo'e} have
here?
> I hate this. But is this-all helping?
Does my reply help?
--And.