Message-Id: <m0r5w7c-00005bC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Fri, 11 Nov 1994 13:11:32 GMT
Reply-To:     i.alexander.bra0125@oasis.icl.co.uk
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         i.alexander.bra0125@OASIS.ICL.CO.UK
Subject:      Re: "ro" doesn't imply +specific
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1365
Lines: 27

cu'u la djan. kau,n.
> Jorge seems to think that anything quantified "ro" is specific, and that if
> this rule doesn't hold, we can't get any +specific sumti at all.  I believe
> he has a hold of the right stick at the wrong end: everything which is
> +specific is quantified "ro", but not vice versa.  The claim "All rats
> have kidneys" is not +specific with respect to "all rats", but -specific;
> it translates as "ro ratcu" or "ro lo ratcu" or "ro da poi ratcu ku'o".
> We do not take the speaker's intent as authority for the meaning of
> "ro ratcu"; we go to the current universe of discourse and quantify over
> the set of all rats.

I grudgingly acknowledge that technically you may be right here, given
the definition of "specific" that we've been using.  Perhaps we need
another term.  The point is surely that there can be no doubt _in principle_
in the mind of either speaker of listener which rats are being referred to -
it's every single one of them.  (Assuming of course that the universe of
discourse is well-defined.)  Noone may be able to identify any single one
of them individually, but that doesn't matter.  The referents are
"completely determined".

> For this and related reasons,
> I remain skeptical about the utility of a +definite/-definite marker in
> Lojban; if it existed, it would surely be a discursive.

Agreed.

co'o mi'e .i,n.