RE: [jboske] Re: big rethink on Unique and other gadri

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

Nick:
> Thanks a bunch, And 
> 
> Unique != Intensional. We had already agreed on that 
> 
> I was just this morning (because you people have ruined Christmas Mass 
> for me too) 

a'o zabna dursalci

> thinking, "whatever the intensional is expressed as, it's 
> not only individuals and {da} that can be intensionals. It's also 
> masses and sets and the rest:
> 
> mi djica lenu da poi gunma loi marjrxodiumu zo'u:
> mi cpacu du
> 
> I want some xodium (whether or not it exists)
> 
> So, unfortunately, this is true: since masses, sets, and individuals 
> can all be intensional, intensionality cuts across these categories 
> 
> One solution (a solution I think pessimal) is to make this a gadcolumn 
> 
> Another solution (which I think preferable) is to leave the gadcolumns 
> alone, and go propositionalist. After all (as I found in CLL to my 
> delight), prenexes by default go to the innermost, not the outermost 
> bridi --- so the default interpretation of {mi nitcu lenu mi tavla lo 
> mikce} *is* "I want to talk to a doctor, any doctor", not "there's this 
> particular doctor I want to talk to" 

This forces a kind of ontological bias onto Lojban, namely that things
have to be construable as events. Which is probably not a good thing.

> Another solution, which I think easiest, is to do what we did with 
> {kau}: just stick a UI on, and say "wherever that UI is, we quantify 
> the referent right here, not in the prenex."

The first sounds right for AL. The last for SL. I suggest using {kau}
itself, which already can be seen as a general diacritic with a
certain amount of kludginess already accrued to it.

> So,
> {mi skicu loi xodiumu} presupposes that xodium exists
> {mi skicu loi XVV xodiumu}: I describe xodium [which is in a world 
> where xodium exists]
> 
> (... is XVV da'i?)

No. Neither in Organic nor IMO in Academic.

> I think there's a lot to be said for le...ce'u, though:
> 
> I seek, using the template "X is xodium" in mind = mi sisku leka ce'u 
> marjrxodiumu
> 
> I describe, using the template "X is xodium" in mind = mi skicu leka 
> ce'u marjrxodiumu?
> 
> I draw some xodium = mi pixrygau fi leka ce'u marjrxodiumu?
> 
> You know, these don't look half so bad to me 

Now that I have backed away from allout propositionalism, I can see
the appeal of this more. But do we really want "I seek Nick" to be
{mi sisku LE ka ce'u du la nitcion}? "I seek intensional Nick"???
I don't think we do want to make every seekee intensional. of course
it is thus in SL, and this is not broken, but in AL I don't think
it should be thus.

> ---
> 
> I see what you're also doing is saying:
> 
> {le} is +specific -veridical
> {lo} is -specific +veridical
> 
> If we had a -specific -veridical, we'd have the solution to our 
> problems. Yes? Is that what you mean by 'presuppose'?

Yes. The logical essence of -veridical is, IMO, presupposition.
(And I have a personal story about how the logic of presupposition
works, which I won't go into again now.)

> I don't know that this is so. {le nanmu} presupposes that a referent of 
> {le nanmu} exists, too, and conventionally claims of it {da nanmu}, 
> without vouching for it. But whatever {le nanmu} is, there is {su'o pa} 
> of it. Right?

The sort of existence claimed for it is the sort of existence that
everything, even imaginary things have. 

> If that's so, then [-specific -veridical] doesn't help. If you seek one 
> of those as a unicorn, you're saying you're actually seeking something 
> else instead. But you're actually seeking a nothing 

Intensionals would ocunt as somethings. They exist in the Lojban sense
of 'zasti'.

> Let me try again. There is no six-letter gismu of Lojban, right?
> 
> Can we say:
> 
> mi nitcu lo xavlerfu gismu
> 
> --- no, because that's
> 
> su'o da poi xavlerfu gismu zo'u: mi nitcu da
> 
> Can we say:
> 
> mi nitcu le xavlerfu gismu
> 
> --- depends on whether le X presupposes that it has a non-null 
> referent. I think it does, but the CLL description of le is pretty 
> opaque 

We can say it. It's totally kosher. Its pragmatic acceptability
depends on the extent to which the description helps the hearer
to identify the referent.

> If you *can* say the latter, your proposed -spec -veridical might work 
> 
> Both politically and for reasons of logic formalisms familiar to me, 
> I'd rather we not make up a gadri for this at all, but stick with ce'u 
> and da'i 

I'd say that SL should ignore it or use LE+kau.

> Or... why can't we just say
> 
> mi nitcu lo su'o no xavlerfu gismu

Because the opaque reading doesn't say whether there are or aren't
any things of the kind being sought.

--And.