Re: More about scopes

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge:
> > > I see {ko'a} as a kind of {le}, just like {da} is a kind of {lo}.
> > More precisely, {koha} is like {lei}.
> I'd like that, but it's not what you are saying below. If it was like
> {lei}, then it would always have a single referent. (Which might well
> be an n-tuple, but it would be a single referent.)

If it is like {lei} it has a specific referent, that's for sure.  But
it's not for sure that it would always have a single referent - that's
what we're debating in response to your thought-provoking question
[Having just read the screenplay of the film _Pulp Fiction_, I am
inclined to call it a coolass question].

> > I think that irrespective of whether
> > the men carried different boxes, the following is true
> >    le ci nanmu cu bevri pa tanxe goi koha
> >    i koha tanxe pamei
> Right. Each of the boxes is a singleton box. But that makes {ko'a} like
> {le}, not like {lei}. Compare:
>        le ci tanxe cu pamei
>        Each of the boxes is a singleton.
>        lei ci tanxe cu cimei
>        The three boxes (together as one entity) are a threesome.
> According to you, {ko'a} is like the first one, {le ci tanxe}.

No, I think it's like {lei ci tanxe}!

   le ci nanmu cu bevri *re* tanxe goi koha
   i koha tanxe remei
   i koha na tanxe xamei
   i kuhi mi na djuno le duhu xohu ro da du lo jei koha tanxe pamei
   to vahi mi na djuno le duhu xukau koha tanxe pamei

> > I agree your {i koha blanu} entails that each box is blue. I think
> > {suho koha blanu} would mean exactly the same;
> Why? {su'o ko'a blanu} should mean that at least one of them is blue.
> The other two might well be of different colours.

Because {suho koha} refers to each member of a singleton set of boxes.

This is what I think it means:

  le ci nanmu cu bevri pa tanxe goi koha i koha    blanu
  nanmu-1        bevri tanxe-x             tanxe-x blanu
  nanmu-2        bevri tanxe-y             tanxe-y blanu
  nanmu-3        bevri tanxe-z             tanxe-z blanu

where tanxe-x, tanxe-y and tanxe-z may be the same or different.

> > since koha has already
> > been equated with a singleton set of boxes, "at least one of the
> > members of the onesome of boxes" is going to be the same as "each of
> > the members of the onesome of boxes.
> But {ko'a} is not one singleton. It is three singletons. Didn't we
> agree on that?

I don't know if we agree.  Does {pa tanxe} (in the example) refer to one
singleton set of boxes or three singleton sets of boxes?  Whatever, koha
refers to whatever {pa tanxe} does.  In my diagram above, in each row,
koha/pa tanxe refer to one singleton set of boxes, while if you look at
all rows, koha/pa tanxe refer to at least one and at most three
singleton sets of boxes.

> > I reckon your example has a logical form like this:
> >   Ev, v is a cimei, Aw if w is in v then:
> >      Ex, x is a pamei, [let x be called "koha"]
> >      Ay if y is in x then w carries y,
> >      Az, if z is in x [i.e. koha] then z is blue
> I don't think it works like that in Lojban. Once ko'a gets assigned,
> it has its referents set, but it doesn't stay within the scope of the
> prenex where it was assigned. Prenexes have scope over a single
> sentence, not over following ones, unless appropriately bracketed.

If this is correct, then everything I'm saying is wrong.  It seems that
either scope may cross sentence boundaries, or, as you have suggested,
{goi} has wide scope regardless of word-order.

> I think this is the right expansion:
>        le ci nanmu cu bevri pa tanxe goi ko'a
>        i ko'a blanu
> Expands to:
>        i ci da voi nanmu pa de poi tanxe zi'e goi ko'a zo'u: da bevri de
>        i ro da poi du su'oko'a zo'u: da blanu

If you think that works, then I don't understand why you originally said
{goi} should get wide scope.  But I don't see how your expansion works.
The problem is that for each nanmu, {koha} gets assigned a new referent.
Perhaps what is needed is a variant of {goi} that *adds* extra referents
to {koha}, instead of replacing existing referents of {koha}.

> > > What is Livagian? I never heard of it before.
> > It's my own invented language [it used to be called Sta]. That's why
> > I apologized for mentioning it.
> Is it available for perusal?

No.  Sometime next millenium.  That's another reason for apologizing for
mentioning it.  Mind you, given that Lojban is over 30 years old, and
worked on by a whole team of people, and still needs work doing on it, I
don't chide myself for taking so long over Livagian.

---
And