From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:46:04 2010 Reply-To: Jorge Llambias Sender: Lojban list Date: Mon Dec 11 13:51:29 1995 From: Jorge Llambias Subject: Re: TECH HARANGUE: LE/LO X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu, jorge@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Mon Dec 11 13:51:29 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: And: > > > (In {Koa krici leduu le broda cu brode} there is an ambiguity, > > > as to who knows which thing it is that koa believes to be a brode > > > - it may be either me, the speaker, or koa. > > The default should be the speaker, because it is not ko'a who is using > > the language. Koha might not even speak Lojban and it still be true > > that ko'a krici ledu'u le broda cu brode. > I don't see why it matters who is using the language. It's part of the context of the utterance. > Even the speaker > may have been not using Lojban (if the text is translated). I don't think that's a valid argument. The translator says what the speaker would have said had he been using the language. For all intents and purposes the utterance must me taken as if said by the original speaker. Unless, of course, the translator uses indirect speech, in which case it will be the translator's {le}. > If there is > an ambiguity, it is in who knows the identity of the thing that is a > brode - who knows who brodes. The speaker must know it, and the audience must know it, in order for communication to occur. If the speaker doesn't know it, then they are just parroting, not speaking. If the audience doesn't know it, then there was no successful communication. Koha need not even be aware of what words is the speaker using to describe koha's beliefs to the audience. Koha's beliefs are concepts, not words. > > To refer to Koha's use of {le broda} you can say {ko'a krici la'e > > lu le broda cu brode li'u}. > I don't see how this helps. To me, lae lu le broda cu brode li'u is an > incomplete bridi (incomplete because a referent must be assigned to > lu le broda liu). Yes, but context tells you where the utterance came from: the believer, and thus you can work out from there what {le broda} stands for. If not enough context is provided, then whoever is reporting koha's beliefs is not doing a good job. > Maybe to you, lae lu le broda cu brode li'u is a > complete proposition, with a referent assigned to lu le broda liu, Not unless I know the origin of the quotation. > but in this case, we must know which lu le broda cu brode li'u the > speaker is talking about, and it is quite possible that there has > never been any utterance expressing a bridi that corresponds to what > koa believes. If there was no such utterance, explicit or implied, then the reporter has no business telling us that koha has such belief. How could they know? The only way that the speaker can talk about koha's lu le broda li'u is if they had knowledge that koha used such word. > There must be standard answers to this problem, well known to, e.g. > pc & John, concerning examples about knowing whether pole stars are > evening stars, Cicero is Tully, Oedipus's wife is his mother, etc etc. I don't know whether there is a standard answer. Here is my attempt: la kikeron du la tulis i la djan na djuno la'e lu la kikeron du la tulis li'u i la djan krici la'e lu la kikeron na du la tulis li'u i la djan cu toldrani > God forbid I should restart the opacity debate. I don't think this is quite the same thing. Opacity had to do with whether the quantification was a part of the inner proposition or the outer one. But Tully's case has to do with whether the inner proposition is being generated by the speaker or whether the speaker is just parroting someone else's words. {ledu'u} is for speaker generated propositions. {la'e lu} is for propositions associated with utterances, which could be (explicitly or implicitly) generated by somebody else. Jorge