Message-Id: <m0rF7UH-00007GC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 6 Dec 1994 21:09:14 +0000
Reply-To:     ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: (1) loi; (2) le v. la
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Tue, 06 Dec 94 03:00:18 EST.)
              <199412060800.AA06876@access1.digex.net>
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> veridicality as we have discussed it in Lojban is not a property of bridi,
> but a property of sumti

Right. But "lo gerku cu xekri" comes out with the (partial) proposition
that there really is a dog.

> A langauge that does not explicitly mark figurative usage in its sumti has
> (or at least in-mind-descriptive usage) is using non-veridical sumti.

That's okay if this is part of the technical definition of veridicality.

> If you say "the man hit the ball", to use a less extreme English example,
> and "the man" is specific and in-mind, you are not generally claiming that
> you have personally inspected the genitalia and/or chromosome structure to
> ensure that the referent of the sumti is indeed a man.  You do not wish that
> the truth claim of the sentence be evaluated on the basis of the unintended
> implied claim that the referent really IS a man.

I think this is "The king of France is bald", isn't it? If so, we really
don't want to get embroiled in this discussion. However, to my (very
limited) knowledge, the opposing positions regarding "the king of France
is bald" are (a) that it is false, and (b) that it has no truth value,
or has a 3rd truth value (i.e. not T or F). I am not aware of a position
that holds the statement to be true [but as I say, I am ill acquainted
with the literature].

At any rate, the problem only arises with +specific 'sumti'. I'd
still maintain that under my original understanding of veridicality
English 'sumti' are +veridical, unless, or possibly even ig, they
are +specific.

> If you used a veridical
> "the man" there and it turned out that the person was not properly male, then
 the statement would be either false or meaningless (depending how you choose to
> define such a failure of the veridical test).

The important point is that its truth or falsity depends on how we
define veridicality. But the utterance is certainly not going to
be meaningless, in either a semantic or a pragmatic sense.

---
And