Message-Id: <m0qunZQ-00005YC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 11 Oct 1994 20:41:21 +0100
Reply-To:     ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: lo [nonexistent]
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Tue, 11 Oct 94 10:41:02 D.)
Content-Length: 2081
Lines: 45

John:
> > I don't think lohe makes claims about the world;
>
> I agree.
>
> > it makes claims for
> > default properties of categories in our minds. So it works.
>
> On your view, then, the difference between "le'e" and "lo'e" is that
> the former refers to the speaker's idiosyncratic categories or properties
> thereof, whereas the latter refers to consensus categories or properties?

I haven't got access to my cmavo list, so I hope I am right in thinking
"lehe" is "the stereotypical".

I would say, to start off with, that it ought always to be possible to reach
a consensus about "lohe broda", if we know enough about brodas, but it
needn't always be possible to reach a consensus about "lehe broda"
(though this doesn't mean there must be an absence of such a consensus).
So, as you suggest, there is some objective basis for "lohe" but not
for "lehe", though we may in fact agree about "lehe broda".

In my view (but not necessarily on my view), properties attributed to
"lohe broda" should be truly the default for our state of knowledge,
so that if, given "lohe broda cu brode", we know that some broda isn't
brode, then we know that this broda is therefore exceptional.
With "lehe", on the other hand, properties we attribute to "lehe broda"
needn't be true by default (for our state of knowledge) of brodas -
it's as if "lehe broda" was appointed as representative of some group
without actually being representative [=adjective] of that group.

For example, suppose there is a race of people called Brodas, and
that virtually every Broda I know has been unfailingly kind to me, a fact
of which I am aware, but I happen to be a racist. In that case,
if I was rational, I would say "lohe mela brodas. cu zabna", and
it would be irrational of me to say "lohe mela brodas. cu mabla",
but it would be foul-minded rather than irrational of me to say
"lehe mela brodas cu mabla".

This is purely me trying to make sense of the distinction. I don't
know if it is the official line of whoever decided in the first
place that it was worthwhile making the distinction.

---
And