WikiDiscuss

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> 2. What?
Le Petit Prince

> 7: Logic hjabits die hard, so I like the already permissible (I think) {la
> djan xi ca}. As I write this I notice that {xi} seems only defined for
> numerals and the like, so some tampering is required here as well (or with
> {la}, though that seems to me harder).

The easiest path is to blend CMENE with BRIVLA. No point in them
having different grammars.

> But notice at what price simplification
> has been bought here: every place of every predicate has to be marked for
> whether {lo broda} in that place refers to some broda or to Mr. Broda.

{lo broda} ALWAYS refers to Mr Broda. No marking is required.

>From {ko'a viska lo broda} we can deduce, based on our
understanding of viska, that {ko'a viska su'o broda}.
But {lo broda} itself is a visible thing. We can say, for example,
pointing to Mr Rabbit, present as a single instance in
front of us:

mi pu viska su'o ta
I saw one of those before.

That doesn't mean necessarily that I saw the same instance.
{ta} in this case refers to Mr Rabbit, just as "those" in English.

> And
> yet there will be cases that are hard to pin down {lo broda cu zasti} is
> ambiguous; it doesn't make a difference since in your strange halfbreed Mr.
> Broda they are extensionally equivalent. And, of course, getting out of
> extensional case separates them: what am I thinking about when {mi pensi lo
> ractu} is true?

You'd be thinking about rabbits, what else?

(I'm copying here some of your comments from the page.
I would prefer that you use the 'discuss' forum rather than the
'comments', because it makes it much easier to reply. Besides, I
don't find out that you have made a comment until I visit the page
or you tell me, whereas the 'discuss' forum I get in my post box.)

pc:
>on {lo'e} and {le'e}.These do NOT take external quantifiers; internal
>quantifiers are about the size of group which is being typed or
>stereotyped (and so is rarely used).

I will write it as you suggest unless there is opposition from others.
The grammar still allows outer quantifiers, but I'm not particularly
interested in assigning them weird meanings.

>If we want to talk about more than one typical whatever, the
>appropriate form (even if it is only one but is not being used for
>typing) is to used the (as yet unlexed) brivla for "typuical"
>and "stereotypical".

{fadni} can be used for "typical". I don't know about "stereotypical".

>Along the lines of these, a modern language surely needs corresponding
>forms for "the average," probably one for each measure of central
>tendency> Of these, the mean does not support generalization but both
>median and mode do, so this fact should be made visible somehow (maybe,
>sticking to the rules, {xo'e} for mean and have the others look more
>like normaler gadri: {xa'a} and {xa'e} say).

There's a page for this kind of thing if you are really interested:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Currently+proposed+experimental+cmavo
<http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Currently+proposed+experimental+cmavo>

I'm curious as to what kind of thing you could say about
the median flower, or the modal rabbit, or the mean shoe.
I just can't think of a place I would use one of those.

>I am unsure about the following additions. Trying to deal with
>them without much care is what has complicated {lo} out of
>coherence. On the other hand, I suspect tha, once we master
>subjunctives in Lojban, the problem cases will be dealt with.
>Until then (and maybe even after then as a shortcut — like {lo'e}
>and {le'e} (although admittedly we cannot now say what is
>abbreviated in these case)):
>a gadri, {xo'o} say, which produces the name of the species/kind/...
>of things that satisfy the predicate. Such things always exist, even
>if there are no such critters as satisy the predicate. These can be
>used to make general claims of one sort.

Of what sort? Can these be used in contrast with {lo broda}
to make a distinction, or only in places where {lo broda} cannot
be used?

>And another for the stuff/substance/goo of things of the predicated
>sort. This is useful for another kind of generalization (though less
>common, I think, except for the normally mass nouns).

Examples?

>Once the extension of old {lo} are dealt with separately, old {lo}
>can take on its proper job again, doing what has rather less
>successfully been done by most uses of new {lo}: an unspecified
>member of the current domain that actually has the proberty described.
>As such, it is generalizable **within the range of the current domain**
>but not generally outside.

Can it be the antecedent of a pronoun from outside the current
domain? For example, I could say:

mi nitcu lo nu mi cpacu lo tanxe
i mi pu viska ty bu'u le lamji kumfa
i e'apei mi lebna ty
"I need to get a box.
I saw ONE in the other room.
May I take IT?"

Can this be done with your proposed {lo}, given that the reference
is from outside the domain where {lo tanxe} appears?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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