RE: [lojban] questions about DOI & cmene

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 03:32 AM 07/17/2001 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
> Lojbab:
> > At 10:58 AM 07/16/2001 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > > > I'll just say that in ex. 11.5 there doesn't seem to be a substantial
> > > > difference in meaning between his chosen expansion and mine, which 
> would
> > > > have use "la" instead of "le".
> > >
> > >Sure there is.  I distinctly remember asking you whether "doi girl in
> > >the red dress" (Carter vocative) was intended to be veridical or non-v.,
> > >and you distinctly said non-v.  There was no question of its meaning
> > >"O person named Girl In Red Dress!" which indeed is doi la etc.
> >
> > Umm, asking me veridical or non-v. doesn't to me differentiate between la
> > and le, since both are non-v. in that neither la xunre nor le xunre have to
> > actually be red.  It differentiates between la/le and lo.
> >
> > Saying that there was no question of its meaning something doesn't tell me
> > whether it means it or doesn't mean it (I can read it either way), so which
> > are you concluding?
>
> I'm open to correction, but I believe veridicality and nonveridicality are
> properties of descriptions. LE sumti and LO sumti are descriptions. LA
> sumti are not descriptions.

LA + [description] is a description just as much as LE + [description] is a 
description, except that we are specifically using the description for 
naming purposes.

But le cribe and la cribe both are indicating a referent using the 
description "bear" with the la version having the additional information 
that I am calling the referent Bear.  In neither case does the referent 
have to actually be a bear, so both are non veridical.

>  "le broda goi ko'a" expresses the bridi "ko'a broda",

No it doesn't.  The two are effectively equivalent, but I don't call one a 
definition of the other.

Actually it seems to me that "goi ko'a" is more like "noi se cmene zo 
ko'a", but I also don't consider that one definitional either.

> but indicates that the bridi is not being claimed to be true.
> "la broda goi ko'a" does not express the bridi "ko'a broda". Hence LA is
> not nonveridical (and nor is it veridical).
>
> Anyway, it follows that if you said that doi+selbri is nonveridical, then
> what you said entailed that it is a description, and hence John would have
> been quite right to conclude that "doi broda" means "doi le broda".
> Evidently he misunderstood you, but ha! it's too late now!

Probably neither of us realized the exact meaning of the question as 
interpreted by the other.

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org