Re: fractionators

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

mi pu cusku di'e

> > "pisu'o" is about as close to an unspecified value as you can get:
> > "some part, more than none, of the whole".  It could mean 1% or 99%,

la .and. cusku di'e

> or 100%, I take it.

Yes.

mi pu cusku di'e

> > the only excluded value is 0%.  So although formally the fractionator
> > is default, in practice it might as well be unspecified.

la .and. cusku di'e

> OK. Why, then, do we need fractionators at all? We don't have them
> with le or lo, do we? "vi viska lo/le prenu" does propel us into
> long discussions about how much of the person or how much of
> each of the people I saw.

I take it that your last sentence lacks a negation, and should be "doesn't
propel us".  Right enough.

The difficulty is fundamental, and depends on your view of masses.  Note
that this has nothing to do with the "porridgey blob" view, which is
unambiguously the correct one (as against the "blurred details" view),
this is a finer split.

Is what is done by a part, done by the whole?  If so, fractionators are
useless.  If, on the other hand, only what involves participation by all
the parts is done by the whole, then fractionators are not useless, because
they enable us to say that "some fraction of the in-mind mass" did such-and-such.

In fact, there is a tension in Lojban between individuals and masses.  The
standard formulation is that masses result from the blobification of
individuals; but there is an alternative formulation that says that everything
is really a mass, and "le/lo" is just a contrivance which allows us to ignore
the mass nature of things when such an attitude is useful.  "mi", e.g. is
really a mass, but we feel free to treat ourselves as individuals when this
is handy, and assert that "I did such-and-such" rather than "Some part of
the me-blob did such-and-such."

I'm none too clear on this topic myself, but I hope someone else (possibly
me-sub-T+1) will be.

> A mass is a singularity: why not treat it like other singulars,
> e.g. "pa lo"?

Because it may be useful to treat separate portions, thus:

	le re nanmu cu citka [pisu'o] lei pa plise
	The two men eat part(s) of the one apple.

vs.

	[pisu'o] lei pa plise cu se citka le re nanmu
	A part of the one apple is eaten by each of the men.

The first is straightforward, the latter impossible or disgusting.

> I don't see why we have to say anything about 'fractionators'
> at all.

The historical answer is that syntax outran semantics.  We devised a syntax
whereby every sumti could be preceded by a number, and then set to devising
meanings for that number on the part of each sumti type.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.