jbocre: zo'e poi

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mukti I'm reminded of a related question I had when I first encountered the zo'e noi broda formula, which is to say, why noi broda rather than poi broda?
lukys Doesn't poi mean something that is essential for the identity, whereas noi is some incidental detail?
durka42 zo'e is always correct by magic, so it doesn't need to be poi
mukti If I say lo botpi, I'm referring to something contextually sensitive. That's the zo'e part, right? But the referent is restricted (or so it seems to me) among all the contextually available referents in so far as it satisfies botpi. That restriction seems to me more like a poi than a noi. Someone set me straight.
durka42 I think zo'e covers both of those, it's just not very useful for the listener to have a bare zo'e in every place...
mukti lukys: Yes, it's my impression that poi limits reference, whereas noi comments on referents.
xalbo I've never understood the problem with zo'e poi either. It still seems right to me. zo'e magically changes reference to find the contextually relevant thing, but zo'e noi broda cu brode seems, to me, to be saying that the thing we'd expect to be talking about if we saw zo'e brode also satisfies broda, where zo'e poi broda cu brode seems, to me, to be saying that the thing we're talking about that satisfies broda satisfies brode.
mukti zo'e noi broda seems to imagine a situation where the referent is pointed to independently of being described as broda. If lo broda is equivalent to zo'e noi broda, aren't we saying that the reference is independent of the description? That the description is incidental?
durka42 well, the reference is in the speaker's mind
mukti Ok, but is it a typed pointer or a void * ?
durka42 don't know how to answer that. I think it's typed
mukti What I'm trying to get at is whether or not the reference can be said to depend on the description.
durka42 that's what people keep going back and forth on
mukti If the reference does not depend on the description, then it is similar to a void * in C. It's the address of data which is unspecified in structure.
durka42 but the data's there, either way
mukti Well, it depends what you mean by "the data". :)
durka42 the referents
mukti If lo broda is zo'e noi broda, and the reference is *not* said to independent of the description, then zo'e must have some property of suspending reference until relative clauses are considered. Or so it seems to me.
durka42 I guess I'm saying they're independent then, but I don't know if we can't answer this question… perhaps zo'e is too magical...
xalbo Well, I think the point is that zo'e is nearly limitlessly magical. It does whatever it needs to, given the entire context (including relative clauses, and everything else possible) to make what you say true.
durka42 but you can still say things that aren't true...
xalbo I guess, then, to make it mean what you mean it to mean...I'm not sure.
durka42 if I say mi dunli lo merja'a, intending to lie, but zo'e undermines me by magically resolving to lo ka remna kei po'o, that's kind of annoying
xalbo Being xalbo, I'd say that's why you wanted to say mi merja'a in the first place. Or at the very least use mintu or du.
durka42 well yes
xalbo But you make a good point. If someone asks mo fa la tepcrida ("What happened to the dementor?"), then se citka mi is a lie, even if se citka mi would otherwise be a true statement (I did eat something). Though maybe that has more to do with place-filling and mo. "What I told you is true, from a certain point of view."
durka42 zo'e has to take the speaker's intentions into account, perhaps that's the same as saying zo'e takes the UD into account
xalbo I don't think those are the same. I'd say it probably has to take both into account.
fpcalep Don't take zo'e noi broda too literally. It's not a text replacement, but a referent replacement
durka42 uaru'e
fpcalep zo'e noi broda is lo broda if zo'e brodas.
durka42 but you can actually say zo'e noi in a sentence
fpcalep Sure, and then you need to know what zo'e refers to. Or not care.
durka42 or, every other week someone invents another experimental cmavo that means zo'e noi [bridi]
xalbo "<fpcalep> zo'e noi broda is lo broda if zo'e brodas." -- That seems like a really complicated way of saying that lo broda is/does the same thing as/mintu zo'e poi broda
durka42 xo'e da poi broda zo'onairu'e
fpcalep I understand zo'e poi broda as lo me zo'e je poi'i broda. poi as a definition for lo doesn't seem right.
xalbo Why not? Isn't the point of lo broda essentially that it gives you a referent that broda's?
fpcalep But zo'e is that referent already.s
xalbo I don't see mi pinxe lo ckafi as saying "I'm drinking something. BTW, it turns out it's coffee. Who knew?"
Ilmen Maybe defining zo'e from lo would be wiser than the other way round
xalbo zo'e and lo co'e seem really, really close to me.
fpcalep But do you see lo ckafi as a restricted reference?
xalbo Intuitively I think i do.
fpcalep Part of why it may seem weird is that zo'e does two different things. It can be "it" or "something"
Ilmen Saying zo'e = lo co'e is probably not more bad a definition than lo broda = zo'e noi broda
durka42 what a ringing endorsement
fpcalep Do you start with a bigger reference set and then restrict it to coffee? lo ckafi goes right to coffee. zo'e poi broda takes zo'e as a start and then restricts to those among it that also satisfy broda
durka42 but zo'e is magic, so it changes to be the restricted set as soon as you restrict it?
fpcalep lo broda -> zo'e noi broda is only true for a zo'e that refers to brodas
xalbo And zo'e noi broda takes zo'e as a start, and then says that it already satisfies broda. Which seems far odder to me.
fpcalep Which is why it's not a literal equality
fpcalep But that oddness comes from zo'e doing both unspecified reference and definite reference
xalbo But the way you say "and this is only true for a zo'e that satisfies broda" is to use poi. That's pretty much exactly what poi does.
fpcalep The equality is only true if zo'e refers to brodas. And zo'e takes its value from context
xalbo It just seems like you keep saying things that sound, to me, entirely consistent with zo'e poi broda, while rejecting "zo'e poi broda". zo'e, but only if it satisfies broda.
fpcalep That's a meta-statement about the equivalence.
xalbo To me, the difference between restrictive and incidental is that I would expect the former to change the referent. If I saw zo'e poi broda cu brode, I would expect to find some zo'e that satisfies both. If I saw zo'e noi broda cu brode, I would expect that the very same zo'e I'd get if I just saw zo'e brode would also happen to satisfy broda. Which, in fact, is a whole lot closer to what I'd expect for lo brode cu broda.
fpcalep The equivalence "lo broda == zo'e noi broda" holds only when zo'e refers to brodas. That's different from saying that lo broda means a zo'e that only refers to brodas. zo'e poi starts with a bigger referent set
xalbo That seems like a bizarre equivalence. What's the point of the noi broda, then? Why not just say "lo broda == zo'e, but that only holds if zo'e refers to brodas"?
fpcalep Exactly. And noi broda only comments on the referent.
xalbo But poi broda adds the bit about requiring it to satisfy broda, but takes it out of the metalanguage English qualification and into the actual equivalence. Why comment on a referent you've already restricted externally?
fpcalep Why restrict that referent again if it's already the referent that makes the bridi true?
xalbo Because we're adding part of the bridi that we also want to say is true (that the referent must also broda).
fpcalep We already know that it does. In the definition of lo broda (remember the "don't take it too literally"). That definition starts by knowing the referent of zo'e. zo'e poi broda is like saying "The contextually obvious things that also broda (two properties need to be satisfied)", while zo'e noi broda is more like saying "Those contextually obvious things, and those things broda" (only one property, namely broda)
xalbo I'm saying that if we define lo broda to mean zo'e poi broda, we'd need a lot less of the "don't take this too literally", "this only applies if it already broda", and other provisos. I don't understand. What are the two properties that must be satisfied for zo'e poi broda?
fpcalep me zo'e and broda
xalbo And zo'e noi broda only requires broda, not me zo'e‽ Or am I misinterpreting "(only one property, namely broda)"?
fpcalep The referent in the poi case includes only those individuals that satisfy both properties, whereas in the noi case the referent is zo'e, and it's (incidentally, that is, it has no effect on a quantifier) broda. This is quite similar to the difference between ro ko'a poi and ro ko'a noi. One has a logical conjunction imposed on the referent, the other asserts both independently. This second part is hard to explain but the quantifier example is hopefully helpful
Ilmen BPFK: "ko'a poi broda" = lo me ko'a je broda ----> According to this definition, defining "lo" from "zo'e poi" would lead to a circular definition, wouldn't it?
fpcalep zo'e poi broda "those things among zo'e that broda"
xalbo I still don't understand. What's wrong with restricting our referents to only those that broda? That seems to be a fundamental thing to what lo broda does, and it seems that even you are doing that, you're just doing it in English separately with "it's only true if zo'e satisfies broda"
fpcalep I tried to make it very clear that that last part is *not* part of the definition; it is a comment *about* the definition
xalbo I don't see the difference between "those things among zo'e that broda" and lo broda. To my mind, noi broda adds completely incidental information. That is, we could replace noi broda] with goi ko'a, and then add a separate sentence ko'a broda, and get the same result (scope issues and grammar issues notwithstanding).
fpcalep I do see a difference between "The dogs" and "The things among those things that are dogs" (though the latter reads a bit ambiguous)
Yes. noi broda adds a separate statement. It seems your trouble is actually with the step from zo'e noi to lo, not vice versa. Or maybe you think it doesn't matter
xalbo I'm not sure.
fpcalep You can go from lo broda to zo'e noi broda in the gadri definition because the definition can choose that this zo'e refers to lo broda. Thus you can go from any lo brodi to zo'e noi brodi as long as you have a zo'e in mind that already refers to exactly what you want. However, in the other direction, it's less true that you can simply replace the strings. Going from zo'e noi broda to lo broda requires the zo'e to refer to lo broda. But not every zo'e refers to lo broda, it takes a special context. If zo'e is tea, then zo'e noi broda won't be lo ckafi. And that's why you cannot take it as a literal replacement.
xalbo Then that makes using zo'e noi broda to explain lo broda less than worthless. You have to already have lo broda as context for zo'e, the noi broda adds literally nothing, and it only works when it already works.