Re: [lojban] {le} in xorlo (was: Re: Response to Robin's "Essay on the future of Lojban"

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 3:20 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> After some googling I found
> <http://www.lojban.org/tiki/BPFK+Section:+gadri>, and while the informal
> definition of E gadri as specific is as expected, this formal definition
> seems erroneous, for two reasons. The first is that "zo'e noi mi ke'a do
> skicu lo ka ce'u broda" does not encode specificity (aka referentiality).
> The second is that the contents of the noi phrase fall within the
> truth-conditions of the containing bridi. You could probably argue that this
> is trivial, because "mi ke'a do skicu" is true by virtue of being uttered,
> so affects the truth-conditions vacuously, but that performativity is not
> encoded, so "mi ke'a do skicu" is not in fact true by virtue of being
> uttered, so is not truth-conditionally inert.

You're right on both counts (though I personally wouldn't conflate
specificity and referentiality).

> I'd have thought the second
> problem could have been remedied by using "voi" rather than "noi", though I
> expect this must have been considered and rejected for some reason, and it
> still leaves the first problem.

If I remember correctly, the reason I decided against "voi" was that
"voi" is defined as the non-veridical counterpart of "poi", and what I
wanted was a non-veridical counterpart of "noi". Also, "voi" is a rare
word in the language, much more so than "le", so using "voi" to define
"le" seemed kind of backwards.

> I'm also wondering whether there exists an experimental specific KOhA, a
> nonanaphoric "it/them". (I think I used to use "le du" in lieu of such.) If
> there were, then E gadri could be defined as "zo'e'e voi ke'a broda", no?
> (where zo'e'e is the specific KOhA).

Maybe "zo'e'e no'oi ke'a broda", with "no'oi" as the non-restrictive
version of "voi".

But I don't really have any clear understanding of what "zo'e'e" could
be used for, other than to define "le". My current, tentative,
understanding is that specificity is mostly a matter of degree rather
than an on/off thing, so not really something that needs its own
gadri, and I'm experimenting with using "lo" as the only gadri.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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