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Re: [lojban] {le} in xorlo
Jorge Llambías, On 12/04/2010 22:57:
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).
Nor would I, actually.
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".
That objection had occurred to me, but it seems to me that the restrictive--nonrestrictive distinction isn't applicable -- that "le du ku noi broda" and "le du ku poi broda" don't differ in meaning.
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".
Surely the meanings "le du", "a certain something or someone" are fairly obvious and useful. If "lo du" = "zo'e", then "le du" might equally well have a KOhA counterpart. Furthermore, the syntax of "zo'e'e no'oi ke'a broda" more closely matches the structure of the semantics.
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.
Have you written up your tentative understanding? Or could you explain it?
My view of specificity is that it involves existential quantification outside the scope of the sentence's illocutionary force (which IMO is what 'conventional implicatures' are -- stuff in the logical form but outside the scope of illocutionary force). E.g. "A (certain) child laughed", "le verba cu cmila" mean "Ex, x is a child: I-hereby-state-that x laughed", so what is asserted is "x laughed", in which, taken in isolation, x looks like a constant that is not identified. So to me, specificity is on/off rather than scalar.
--And.
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