Re: specificity and metonymy

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

Bob C:
> > It has been established ... that LE/LO is +/-specific
> This is somewhat misleading.  {le} may well be *less* specific to a
> *listener* than {lo}.

I meant 'specific' in the technical sense, which (I say clumsily
in my ignorance) is that you don't find the referent by
quantification; the referent is a constant.

I do agree that metalanguage taken from everyday language can
be misleading. Would anyone care to suggest a lojban term for
specificity (of reference)? That would help.

On the subject of metonymy: unless this is built in to the grammar,
it is a matter of pragmatics, and if it is a matter of pragmatics
it isn't, strictly speaking, pertinent to a debate on the semantic
component of the grammar.

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And