veridicality in English

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Ed:
> >In English you have the choice between "the", which is nonveridical
> >but can refer to the entire extension of a singleton category,
> >or "a", which (I think) is veridical but can't refer to the
> >entire extension of a singleton category.
> [snip]
>
> That's three universal claims and one existential claim.
>
> Let me offer some counterexamples.
>
> A square circle (nonveridical)
> The King (veridical)

I don't accept these as counterexamples. "Veridical/nonveridical"
do not mean "true/false". They mean "asserted (by the speaker)
to be true/false".

> (BTW is there a default ontology for making these distinctions? I have
> trouble with the idea that we have one that really works. The ontologies I
> use for shopping, biology, physics, religion, and math are necessarily very
> different, and by no means definite on all points. Is a Euclidean plane
> veridically flat?)

Given the better definition of veridical, these questions become
irrelevant.

> We wish to show that *a* solution to this equation is necessarily the
> solution previously constructed. (singleton)

Good example. But "a solution" in itself does not rule out
there being other solutions. So not a counterexample.

> >> The Lojban {lo} and {le} do not suggest
> >> singular or plural, which the English `a' and `the' do.
> >
> >Right. (Based on actual usage, though, they do seem to generally
> >be used as singulars. I, though, would recommend using lo/le
> >for plurals, and for singulars and by default using loi/lei.)
> [snip]
>
> So you want to reintroduce grammatical number after all the work we went to
> to get rid of it? Even after the baseline? Aren't there cmavo for 'single'
> and 'multiple' to take care of this requirement?

The baseline is irrelevant. This is purely a matter of usage,
not of design. Furthermore, I don't want to reintroduce
grammatical number. In contexts where the contrast between
singular and plural referents is logically irrelevant, I
am all in favour of letting the distinction be blurred, and I
recommend lei/loi for this. However, as previously established
on this list, there are plenty of contexts where the difference
between singular & plural referents makes a *logical* difference.
(E.g. {le} with plural ref is scope-sensitive; with singular
ref it is scope-insensensitive.) Hence a logical language *should*
distinguish at least between singulars and distributive plurals.


--And