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Re: [lojban] {le} in xorlo

[I'm not sure whether technical discussion is or isn't welcome on the main list. If it isn't, tell me where to move it. (E.g. to the jboske list if that were to move to Googlegroups.])

Jorge Llambías, On 13/04/2010 14:25:

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 9:23 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:

Jorge Llambías, On 12/04/2010 22:57:

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.


"ko'a poi broda" means that from the set of referents of ko'a I'm only
taking some subset, those that satisfy broda.


I can't get my head round the notion of multiple referents. To my way of thinking, the referent is the group; if one derives from that the predicate "x is a member of the group referred to", then certainly the poi/noi distinction makes sense. Hence to me, KOhA poi/noi is comparable to "li mu (ku) poi/noi" (in which perhaps more clearly the poi/noi contrast would seem to be vacuous).

Am I several steps behind where current lojbanological thinking has got to on this? Is it written up anywhere?


But in "le broda" there is no superset of referents that I have in
mind, such that out of those only the ones that I'm describing as
broda are selected. The only referents ever in play are those of "le
broda", not some restriction from a superset consisting of the
referents of "le du".


OK, this I'm with you on. Hence the vacuity of the poi/noi contrast, as with the "li mu" example... Or?


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.


Hmm... yes, I see. Assuming "le" is useful, there should be a KOhA
that is to "le" as "zo'e" is to "lo", yes.


Furthermore, the syntax of "zo'e'e no'oi ke'a
broda" more closely matches the structure of the semantics.


Yes, I agree with that, "noi mi ke'a do skicu" is something of a kludge.

(BTW, "lo gunma be lo" for "loi" is also something of a kludge, for a
different reason, but at this point close enough for government work.)


What's the kludge? I didn't spot it...


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?


Well, maybe degree is not quite what I meant. What I'm trying to say
(still very tentatively) is that specificity is a matter of
perspective, depending on the level of abstraction one chooses to use
in the analysis.

Consider "They came by bus." If we analyse it from a perspective where
the universe of discourse contains {bus, train, car, bicycle}, then
"bus" is specific, we are saying "they came by x" where x is a
constant with a perfectly identified individual referent in the
universe of discurse. If we analyse it from a perspective where the
universe of discourse contains {the 21 bus, the 33 bus, the 60 bus,
the 69 bus}, all of which are buses, then "bus" is non-specific, we
are saying "Ex, x is a bus: they came by x". But it's hard to say that
we are dealing with two different meanings, to me they are just two
perspectives on the same meaning, unless there are contextual reasons
to prefer one universe of discourse over the other. And "the 21 bus"
is also not a rock bottom individual, since it two can be seen from
two perspectives, and this concretizing can go on indefinitely.

(pc will probably want to argue that there is an objective rock
bottom, but let's stay away from that putative rock bottom for the
moment so that we have the two perspectives easily available.)

My (tentative) contention is that this double perspective is always
available, and if that's the case then deciding whether a given term
is specific or not is arbitrary (and the decision need not be made).
"le" could be an indication to take the specific perspective, while
"lo" remains non-commital. The non-specific perspective is achieved by
forcing an explicit quantifier.


I'm 100% in agreement on this, *except* to my thinking, you're describing the contrast between generic and nongeneric readings. I agree that the generic--nongeneric distinction is a matter of perspective (on the population of the universe of discourse) (but not a matter of degree).

I don't mean this as a quibble about terminology, and I'm happy to switch to whichever terms facilitate discussion, but I understand "specificity" to mean the meaning "some particular individual/category/concept in the universe of discourse" (where an individual can be a group) where the individual isn't identified by name. So, as it were, one uses a zo'e'e and then, if one wishes, adds a voi clause (or converts to a "le" phrase) or a noi clause to assist the addressee in narrowing down the range of possible 'referents' (or even identifying the 'referent').

English "the" means, I think, "lo cmima be zo'e'e" with the added element of meaning that the addresses can identify zo'e'e. (I had a dim recollection that there was a BAhE for that "you know which" meaning, but apparently not.)


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.


I think you're looking at yet another dimension in which specific is
different from non-specific than the one I was considering. You are
looking at where the quantifier is with respect to illocutionary
force, and I'm looking at where the quantifier is with respect to
fixing the level of abstraction. (Or maybe I'm just hallucinating, I
don't feel like I have any firm grasp on specificity yet.)
This pretty much fits with how things look to me too. But to me (i.e. to my understanding of Lojban), the level of abstraction issue doesn't have to do with the E/O gadri contrast... 

--And.

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