[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, And Rosta wrote: > John: > > And Rosta scripsit: > > > > > pa doesn't guarantee uniqueness: ro broda cu brode pa li mu = "each > broda is > > > brode of one number 5". Because there is only one number 5, this isn't > > > a problem, of course. But the quantifier should be tu'o. > > > > I agree that pa does not guarantee uniqueness, but since uniqueness is > > guaranteed by outside factors, there seems to be no reason not to use it > > as the default. Saying "tu'o" is the default suggests that by default > > there is no meaningful answer to the question "How many instances of > > li mu are there", whereas it seems to me there is a meaningful answer, > > viz. one. > > I disagree on three counts. > > 1. Using pa relies on encyclopedic knowledge to override the logical form > that allows that there may be multiple instances of a number. I think it > is reasonable to expect the grammar to know that there is only one Five, > and to refer to 5 accordingly. > > 2. tu'o doesn't suggest that there are no meaningful answers. It is simply > the absence of quantification. Logically, "tu'o li 5" is a *constant*. > CLL-Lojban doesn't have constants, but I think it should, and that much > confused messiness results from the lack of constants. > > 3. It is arguably correct that the cardinality of the mass of all Five(s) > is tu'o rather than pa. Since we can't conceive of what re li mu would > be like, we can't know that there is exactly pa li mu. We know that we have one Five. And we can show that every other Five is identical. So we've proven that there is only one Five. This is not trivial. The same type of proof can prove that there are only two integers between 0.1 and 2.1, a case that does not result in any answer which one is tempted to substitute tu'o. -- The Pentagon group believed it had a visionary strategy that would transform Iraq into an ally of Israel, remove a potential threat to the Persian Gulf oil trade and encircle Iran with U.S. friends and allies...