Re: plural

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

> Jorge got knocked off the list again by the listserv automatic
> processes, so I hope he gets this eventually.

Got it, thanks.

> But once context forces me to make quantifiers explicit, then the
> optionality of number expression has by definition ceased.  Lojban
> allows one not to express number when it is NOT important to do so.

I am not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying that is not optional
is the distributive vs. group reference. If you use {le broda} to mean
a mass of broda, I think it is confusing.

> >One thing is to designate something that is not quite a broda but is
> >very similar to one as {le broda}.  A very different thing is to
> >designate something that is a group of broda (taken as a unit) as {le
> >broda}, especially since the obvious way would be to say {lei broda}.
>
> Why is it a "very different thing",

Because they are different grammatical objects, that have different
logical consequences. "The cat" behaves as far as logics is concerned
the same way as "the dog", but "each of the cats" behaves very differently
from "all the cats together".

> >Suppose that there are five people in front of us, and I say:
> >
> >        ro le prenu cu citka lo plise
> >
> >This I will understand to mean "Each of the (5) people eats an apple."
>
> Would it?  I'm not sure where "lo" ended up, but if it ended up as
> implicitly equivalent to "da poi", then the sentence may mean that they
> all ate the same apple.  Is this your intent?  (your English is
> ambiguous).

That is not excluded, but it is not what it means. It means "for each
of the five persons, there is at least one apple such that the person
eats it". In general, a different one for each, and because of the
pragmatics, in this case I would say it has to be a different one for
each, but that doesn't come from the logics, which allow the same apple
for more than one.

> Given that you knew that there were 5 people and 5 apples before, and
> none of the apples remain, then "le prenu cu citka le plise" suggests
> that the apples were respectively eaten by the people, but to me makes
> no implication about which of the people ate which apple(s).

Good example! {le prenu cu citka le plise} means "each of the people
ate each of the apples". Each person ate each of the 5 apples, either an
impossibility or a disgusting scene :)

On the other hand, {lei prenu cu citka lei plise} means "the people
ate the apples", without saying what person ate what apple(s).

> Likewise "le mu prenu cu citka le mu plise" more strongly emphasizes the
> correspondence than the same sentence without the quantifiers.

What you want is {le mu prenu cu citka pa le mu plise}, "each of the
five persons ate one of the five apples", but again you are not excluding
an apple left uneaten, and one eaten by more than one person.

> But I
> think you would insist that I expand this to 25 sentences implying that
> each of the people ate each of the apples - a rather incomprehensible
> concept.  Is this what we want?

Yes.

> (Nora thinks so.  She notes that as
> long as only one sumti is to be interpreted distributively, there is
> seldom problem with expansion.)

I agree with Nora. That is what we want.

> Nora observes that she would not think twice about saying "mi
> tcidu le cukta" referring to a pile of books, intending to indicate that
> she had read them all.

Well, that's not a problem, she read each of them. A different thing
would be to say for example {le cukta cu rupnu li mu}, which means
that each of the books is $5, very different from {lei cukta cu rupnu
li mu} which means that the whole mass of them is $5. The first treats
each book individually, the second as a mass. If you use the first to
mean the second, I will be very confused.

...

> > (Unfortunately, I realize that in practice I tend
> >to ignore the issue and happily use lenu where I should use le'enu.)
>
> But you are understood, which implies that "le" can be understood as
> "le'e" pragmatically.

Then why worry about malglico? We are always understood when we use it.

> Why then do you insist that it not mean "lei"
> under other pragmatics.

Because I understand (or think I do, at any rate) the difference between
{le} and {lei} much better than I do the difference between {le} and {le'e}.
If I was more certain about {le} vs. {le'e} I would also try to be
consistent.

> (And do you assume that the "le'e" you 'should'
> have used is always singular?)

Not singular, but yes individual. That's why I wanted {xe'e}, so that
I could have the opaque equivalent for masses too.

Jorge