From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:53:25 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 32033 invoked from network); 24 Sep 1997 02:56:39 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 24 Sep 1997 02:56:39 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <2.AEDC0BFC@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Wed, 24 Sep 1997 4:56:29 +0100 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 12:55:20 +1000 Reply-To: HACKER G N Sender: Lojban list From: HACKER G N Subject: Re: LE and VOI X-To: And Rosta X-cc: Lojban List To: Veijo Vilva In-Reply-To: Content-Length: 1243 Lines: 26 Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, HACKER G N wrote: > > On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, And Rosta wrote: > > > I'm not sure whether this is grammatical, but I think it may be > > possible to contrast "le da poi" (specific, veridical) with > > "le da voi" (specific, nonveridical). > > I know that there are issues involving sumti quantification where you can > put an article before a pro-sumti, but to my knowledge it has never been > done to express veridicality. Perhaps this will do in a crunch where you > need to express both specificity and veridicality at once. No, I take it back. Assuming that using "le" is grammatical like this, what you would in fact be saying with "le da poi" is "the DESCRIBED something that really is..." People may be able to figure out what you really meant anyway, but the limitation caused by that forced choice between specificity and veridicality is still there. But at least "da voi" by itself does make for non-specificity and non-veridicality, although this again is an attack on our conceptual faculty to know specific things about the universe, because it moves us even further away from that state of affairs. We can't express specificity and veridicality, but we can expres non-specificity and NON-veridicality! Geoff