WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


BPFK Section: gadri


> That's irrelevant. When they do meet, the child should be forgiving.
> This is not committing the child to the difficult task of seeking out
> every adult. It is nonetheless a claim about every child and every adult.

To me {ei ro verba cu fraxu ro makcu prenu} means:
"It ought to be the case that each child forgives each adult."

What does {ei lo verba cu fraxu lo makcu prenu} mean according to you?

> Consider {.iinai so'u cinfo cu kalte ca lo nicte} vs.{.iicai so'a cinfo
> cu kalte ca lo nicte}. The numbers of lions hunting at night is
> completely crucial.

In those claims, indeed it is. But in {ca lo nicte lo cinfo cu kalte
lo cidja} no numbers are mentioned.

> And if lions didn't exist, the warning would be
> pointless — completely different from the intensional examples we cite.

The fact that you can quantify does not mean that you must.
If you want to be precise with tense, you can be. But Lojban does
not force it upon you. If you want to be precise with number, you
can be. But Lojban does not force it upon you. A claim with the
minimal gadri {lo} cannot be false on account of number, because
it doesn't carry any info on number.

> >>>>lo pa pixra cu se vamji lo ki'o valsi
> >>>>One picture is worth a thousand words.
>
> Nothing here convinces me that "a picture" is not simply code for "every
> picture". This is an extensional claim about every picture, regardless
> of its figurative sense.

If you want to make the extensional claim, nothing stops you,
but it has a different sense altogether. You'd be saying that
every picture is very informative instead of comparing the
informative value of pictures vs. words.

> How would you interpret "A woman should wear an apron"? Doesn't it mean t=
> hat we=20
> loop through every woman, point to her, and demand she wear an apron?

It is very similar to "Every woman should wear an apron", yes.
In Lojban you can be as precise or imprecise as you like.
>From least to most precise:

ei lo ninmu cu dasni lo cragai
ei ro ninmu cu dasni lo cragai
ei ro ninmu cu dasni su'o cragai
ei ro ninmu cu dasni pa cragai

And of course you can add tense:

ei ro ninmu ca ca'o ca'a dasni pa cragai

"Every woman should at this moment be actually wearing an apron."
If you don't express the time some of them might argue that they
wore one yesterday and so they already fulfilled their duty.

> >>>>lo ctuca cu fendi lo selctu mu lo vo tadni
> >>>>The teacher will divide the class
> >>>>into five groups of four students.
>
> What teacher? Any teacher? No, not any teacher. The teacher in the
> example. Our hypothetical teacher about whom we know nothing except that
> he's teaching Scooby Doo to a bunch of 3rd graders.

And who might never exist, right.

> If each reference to
> a teacher referred once again to any, non-specific teacher, each
> sentence might refer to a bi'u teacher, rendering the script nonsensical.
> We could have given him a name, *unlike* the needed doctor.

Not nonsensical, just more vague. But context will help sort it out.
When telling a story we don't need to put a tense in every sentence,
as usually things are told in the order they happened. You can, of
course be more precise when you need or want to.

> Suppose the instructions included a second teacher. Would that be any
> teacher? Again no, because "any teacher" could include the first teacher.

If it's important that it's about two teachers then you'd have to use
number, of course. If it's irrelevant if there is one teacher or two
conducting the lesson, you might not even mention number.

> Furthermore, this example is totally prenexable: "Let there be a teacher.=
> Let=20
> there be a classroom..."

Indeed, and there's nothing wrong with doing it that way.
But let's get away from the idea that there is always one
correct gadri for each situation and all the rest are wrong.
{lo} is the most general gadri and so it will practically
never be wrong in cases when another gadri is more precise.

mu'o mi'e xorxes





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