WikiDiscuss

pc:
> What {lo} seems to be used all to often to shoot for is that
> wondrously vague sense of English plurals,

English bare plurals, yes. Not "some brodas" or "all brodas" or
"the brodas", but just "brodas".

>"the" generic expressions and the
> like, which are closer to {lo'e} than anything else presently in the
> language:

That's why I used {lo'e} for that for many years, but it didn't
catch on. And even to me, it always seemed too marked, and there
was always someone around to point out that that's not what
"the typical" means.

> that is they talk about the members of a class but without an
> specific number being relevant — one is usually too few, all is usually more
> than is strictly required, and within that not all count equally for the
> claim. This is not intensional but just a different way of looking at a
> class, by weight, as it were, rather than by number. It is also different
> from thinking about the class itselr as a node in the conceptual tree --
> closer to {lo'i} but again more somewhat isolated from the members (though
> {lo'i} may work jhere — my proposal just
> leaves the answer to that for later and meanwhile gets on with business).

Your proposal at this point is to use {lo'e}, right?

> To be sure, the difference between a set and the property that defines its
> are sometimes said to be the differnce between extension and intension, but
> that is a different distinction by that name from the corresponding talk
> about contexts (though there may be some deep or remote connection).

The difference in terms of sets that I'm familiar with is in how
a set is defined. A definition by extension is a list of the
members, whereas a definition by intension is giving the property
that the members have. So the same set A can be defined either way:

by extension A={2,4,6,8}
by intension A={x/x is an even number greater than 1 and less than 9}

The same set can have different definitions by intension.
Lojban uses {ce} for definitions by extension and {lo'i} for definitions
by intension.

> B: Well, we ought to find some way of expreessing generic usage, but that it
> be {lo} is at least controversial. that {lo} has been misused (against the
> Book) in this way in the past hardly justifies continuing to do it.

I agree that that is not in itself a justification but just a supporting
argument. Another supporting argument is that nothing is lost in terms of
expressiveness because {su'o} duplicates the job of old-lo. Also, because
the proposed sense is more general that the old and covers it, past usage
is hardly invalidated but at most may read as a little more vague than
intended. And since in a sense {lo} is supposed to be the least marked
gadri, it should go to the least restricted notion.

How do languages without articles handle this? Always using {lo}
and making distinctions of specificity by other means would be
like having a language without articles.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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