Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 13:11:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711191811.NAA00126@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: 1910 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Nov 19 13:11:14 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU la .and. cusku di'e > I would say that since we agree that THE is sometimes nonveridical, > and since an adequate theory of pragmatics can account all cases > of THE if (even if) THE is assumed to be always nonveridical, > the most parsimonious semantics of THE is to take it to always > be nonveridical. As you know, any argument dependent on a semantics/pragmatics distinction {cuts no {ice|mustard}|butters no parsnips} with me. Theories of pragmatics being rather unconstrained, they can patch up arbitrarily bad (or arbitrarily arbitrary) semantics theories. > I certainly don't share your judgement that the truth of > Paul Revere's statement is contingent on whether the comers > really are British. Hmmm. This reminds me of the dreaded "goat's legs" argument. (Recap for newbies: if a goat has four legs, is it correct to say "That goat has three legs?" In English, maybe yes, maybe no, probably not if under oath; in Lojban, no.) > > But consider the following narrative: "[1] A man went to the store > > yesterday. [2] The next day, he went to the office. [3] 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. I hold that "a man" in [1] is +specific -definite -veridical, and means the same as "a certain man". "The man" in [3] is then +specific +definite (as a result of [1]) -veridical. > I don't see why '"a man" and "the man" must be either both > non-veridical or both veridical. I would have said the former > is veridical and the latter isn't, and can't see the inadequacy > of this. On your view, then, if the man were really a woman: [1] would be false, [2] would have a presupposition failure, and [3] would still be true? -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban