Re: [lojban] "knowledge as to who saw who" readings

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/12/2001 7:41:54 PM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:

<>   su'o da poi grute ku'o su'o de poi pelxu zo'u da du de
>   For some x which is a fruit and some y which is yellow, x=y.

I must be misusing "reference" then. To me that sentence has the
same sense as {su'o da grute gi'e pelxu}, and I perceive no
reference there, it's a statement about the world, but not
about any of its things in particular. How do we call the
reference that occurs in a term like {ko'a}, as opposed to
this "reference" of {su'o da} that doesn't point to anything?
This is just meant as a question of vocabulary>

I think I am misunderstanding the question.  I would distinguish your two sentences (and {su'o da pelxu grute}) by saying that they all referto more or less the same fact, but that thye do so in very different ways. Operationalizing "sense" as a search for reference (useful, if not always entirely accurate), I would say the first says that a search for a fruit and a search for ayellow thing sometimes end at the same thing.  The second say that a search for one thing that is both yellow and a fruit will be successful, just as the third (parenthetical) says that the search for a yellow fruit will be successful.  All of these are pointing at the existence of bananas, say.  

{ko'a} refers, if at all, either by pointing -- pretty much literally -- or by a contextual set of directions.  {da} doesn't of itself refer at all but guarantees some outcome of a search for objects of some sort.  Sorry this is vague.