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From: ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <88293.9410101857@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>
Subject: Re: lo [nonexistent] 
In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 10 Oct 94 00:50:41 D.)
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 94 19:57:29 +0100
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Mon Oct 10 14:59:48 1994
X-From-Space-Address: ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk

> >But your examples would translate as "ro elf" or "lohe elf", not as
> >"lo elf".
> >
> >We need different examples where we want to discuss hypothetical
> >but nonexistent objects using "lo".
>  
> I can't say for sure about "lo'e", but this does not work for "ro elf".
> If the statement "ro [elf] cu [has pointed ears]" is true, then so is
> "ro [elf] cu [has unpointed ears]" and "ro [elf] na [has pointed ears]".
  
I don't see this. But anyway, what matters is what would be true
if elves exist. 

> Whether "lo'e" makes any meaningful claims is really unclear, especially
> if it is a claim about nonexistent objects.  I mean:  if elves do not
> exist, what can you say about a typical elf?  Now, a stereotypical one
> (le'e), maybe.  Of course "the typical family" has 1.5 kids in the USA
> these days by one epistemology (statistics) so it doesn't really exist.

I don't think lohe makes claims about the world; it makes claims for
default properties of categories in our minds. So it works.

And