Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 10:46:17 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711191546.KAA25327@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Organization: Lojban Peripheral Subject: Re: veridicality in English X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1650 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Nov 19 10:46:26 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU la .and. cusku di'e > > Likewise, if I say > > (with Paul Revere) "The British [persons] are coming!", this cannot be > > true unless it is the British who are coming. > > I believe this is a misreport of the facts of English. Some weeks > ago I discussed an example (taken from McCawley): "the man > standing over there drinking a martini" - here I'm not claiming > that he's drinking a martini; I'm just describing him to help > you identify who I'm talking about. Hence THE is nonveridical. I grant that in McCawley's example, "the" is non-veridical, but your example does not refute my example. If, in fact, it was the French who were coming, then Revere's statement would be false. Hence "the" can be veridical or non-veridical depending on context. > > Likewise, the use of "a" to indicate a new referent can override > > any default veridicality. The narrative use of "A man went to the > > store yesterday" does not require that the referent really is a man. > > ? I don't see what you mean. There are two possible interpretations of "A man went to the store yesterday". In one sense, it is synonymous with "There is a man who went" etc., and here "a" is veridical: if no man went to the store yesterday, the statement is false. But consider the following narrative: "A man went to the store yesterday. The next day, he went to the office. Later, the man flew to Singapore." In this case "a man" and "the man" must be either both non-veridical or both veridical; I hold that they are both non-veridical. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban