On Monday, September 29, 2014 2:18:43 PM UTC-4, selpa'i wrote:
la .and. cu cusku di'e
> selpa'i, On 29/09/2014 13:27:
>> la .and. cu cusku di'e
>> I think the whole notion of veridicality and non-veridicality is
>> overstated.
>
> Yes, it is overstated in CLL, early teaching materials, and Lojbab-level
> understanding of gadri, but it is nevertheless not insignificant.
It probably depends on what one takes {le} to mean. I have yet to see
someone formulate a theory of its semantics in logical terms, and also
how it might differ from {lo}, which I'm not convinced it does. Vague
explanations are no longer enough to define the meaning of the different
gadri.
"The logical theory of descriptions, following Russell (1905), gives a slightly different account of these matters, namely that the description '(i)Fx' purports to name (i.e., designate) the one and only object of which 'F' is true, 'F' being some predicate _expression_ which allows this interpretation, e.g., 'is an author of Waverly' (see, for example, Quine 1961a:222). On this interpretation 'the author of Waverly' (Russell's classic example) is taken to contain the covert claim 'There is an x such that x is an author of Waverly and, for any y, if y is an author of Waverly, then y is identical to x.' But the uniqueness claim is patently false for the majority of expressions commencing with 'the' in everyday speech, e.g., 'the man', 'the red thing', etc. What is common to all such expressions is the intention of the speaker to single out however crudely (e.g. 'the whachamacallit') the unique object, or set of objects, about which da has something to say. That such expressions use predicates is apparently misleading, for they do not use them predicatively; any more than names used vocatively actually name. On the view taken in this book, no claim whatever is made by a description. What is signified by the use of one is (among other things) the speaker's readiness to help the listener locate the unique object about which da has something to say. We may say that this implies that da believes that such objects exist, but this is a different matter. No one may be accused of claiming everything that da's words imply. There is more on this in Loglan 2, Chapter 8 (Brown 1969b, reprinted in TL2:31-41)."
I would very much like to read Loglan 2 Chapter 8 to learn more, but I have to find a copy of Loglan 2. In any case, my take away from this is that the definition of le is essentially:
∃X: P(X) and if ∃Y: P(Y) then Y=X, with the proviso C(X) & C(Y).
P is the descriptive predicate and C means "is within the context of conversation". I am inclined to think that this last part is the the missing logic that could tie Russell's thinking in with JCBs.