Message-Id: <199411300441.AA21465@nfs2.digex.net>
From: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU
Date: Tue Nov 29 23:41:46 1994
Subject:      Re: veridicality in grammar
In-Reply-To:  <199411300130.UAA23537@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> (message from David
              Bowen on Tue, 29 Nov 1994 14:53:44 -0600)
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 29 23:41:46 1994
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu

dmb@ironwood.cray.com said:

       Since veridicality isn't usually a concern in English it's difficult to
    construct an analog.  References to "deciduous pines", "colorless green
    objects" or "sunsets in the eastern sky" would be possible examples of
    syntactically valid phrases that lack meaning.  ...

Right: all syntactically valid in *English*; none grammatically incorrect.

But the definition of {lo} is:

    the one(s) that really is(are)

Lojban is truly different.  Applying {lo} to a sunset in the Eastern
sky is *incorrect*, if you are talking of earth, and talking of the
sun setting, rather than the fading of a distant atomic explosion, or
the results of a peculiar cloud formation.

The point is, {lo} and {le} are grammatical categories.  In natural
languages, grammatical categories are used by people *effortlessly* or
nearly so.  Semantic categories `take thought'; they require felt
effort.

My hunch is that speakers of Lojban will learn to make the distinction
among sumti_tails distinguished by {le}, {loi}, {lo'e}, {le}, etc, as
easily as we English speakers make distinctions among past,
progressive present, future, and future perfect.

But I may be wrong.  This is an issue that can eventually be settled
empirically.

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road     bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725