Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 2 Sep 1993 12:10:59 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 2 Sep 1993 12:10:54 -0400 Message-Id: <199309021610.AA08557@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3786; Thu, 02 Sep 93 12:09:23 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 6400; Thu, 02 Sep 93 12:11:57 EDT Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 11:06:40 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: TECH: specifity & definiteness X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9309020948.AA10747@relay1.UU.NET> from "Iain Alexander" at Sep 2, 93 10:45:20 am Status: O X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Thu Sep 2 07:06:40 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET la .i,n cusku di'e > > What is an [] example of a specific indefinite reference (in English)? > > Assuming that And's talking about the definite article > "the" vs. the indefinite article "a", then this is one > of the points I've tried to make several times now. Since then And has said that definiteness is not tied to the article "the", but rather is a listener-centric property: the listener is expected to know the referent. Lojban doesn't have any direct way of expressing this. BTW, nobody so far has given an example of -specific +definite in English. lojbab has produced one case in Lojban: A: mi klama le zarci B: le zarci be ma A: I'm going to the house. B: Whose house? Here A's use is +specific -definite; he knows what he means, but doesn't necessarily expect B to know, and indeed B does not. However, when B uses the construction, it is -specific +definite; B expects A to know the referent, but B doesn't know the referent! Needless to say, this case is highly anomalous, and arises because B is parroting A's usage without real understanding. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.