Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0r4CYi-00005bC; Sun, 6 Nov 94 20:43 EET Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6300; Sun, 06 Nov 94 20:43:31 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 6298; Sun, 6 Nov 1994 20:43:31 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 9618; Sun, 6 Nov 1994 19:40:22 +0100 Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 13:44:03 EST Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Subject: Re: -veridical, -specific X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1222 Lines: 39 la goran cusku di'e > coi doi rodo > > Dunno if I got this right, but, how about: "Pick your favourite superhero." > > Isn't that -veridical, -specific? That seems to me +veridical, +specific. > There are no things that really are > superheroes How can you pick one, then? > (by this I mean Superman, Spidey, Flash etc., guys that can > do outrageous stuff without being punished by the letter of the Laws of > the Universe). How can you say that there are no superheroes and then give a list of superheroes. Is "Superman is a superhero" true? If yes, then the set of superheroes is not the empty set, and you can make claims about "lo" superhero. The fact that Superman is a character of fiction doesn't make him a less valid referent. > So it's -veridical. Veridical doesn't mean real-life, it means that the referent satisfies the predicate. > It is also -specific, because the > choice is not made at the time of the utterance. "Your favourite superhero" is +specific, it has a specific referent. An example of -specific would be: "I picked a superhero", where I am not specifying which one. But the claim is false if the set of superheroes is the empty set, because then I couldn't have picked one. Jorge