Re: Re: No static, democratic

la nitcion cusku di'e

> But what would a day on jboske be without me yelling at Jorge?

Your yells are always well received.

> > You are assuming that distributive is the default reading of plurals,
> > but I don't agree that this is the case. I think collective is a more
> > useful default reading, i.e. I don't assume distributivity unless
> > explicitly marked.
> 
> Jorge, I should hope you're not now humpty-dumptying English as well as 
> Lojban! :-) The interpretation in English is contextually determined, 
> primarily by the verb, so I don't see why talk of a default in English 
> is even meaningful. 

I didn't mean to talk of a default in English. I said that some 
properties are properties both of the group and of the members, and 
that in those cases I think using the collective is usually better.
(It certainly makes the logic much simpler to handle.) 

>(And what's *useful* in English? Natlangs don't 
> work like that. I do know I find it difficult to credit emergent 
> properties are more commonplace than non-emergent ones, though.)

Looking at that paragraph: one generic plural, two emergents, 
no distributive. Perhaps the sample is not large enough to be 
significant though. :)

> In Lojban, of course, the distributivity of {(za'u) lo} is definitional 
> to {lo}, and non-negotiable. Since {lo} is distributive, and the 
> English plural is *frequently* distributive, the tendency to use {loi} 
> as a generic plural (which is there) does indeed need to be combatted. 
> The minute people say {loi X cu nelci}, say, there's a better than even 
> chance they're doing something wrong...

I see more errors in Lojban the other way, people using 
distributive plurals which if taken at face value give absurd
claims.

mu'o mi'e xorxes



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