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Re: [lojban] Speaker specificity: {.i da'i na vajni}

selpa'i, On 29/09/2014 19:18:

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.


Upthread, I said {le broda} = {lo co'e voi'i ke'a broda}, where voi'i = nonveridical noi and nonveridicality amounts to illocutionary identificationality. That's not vague.

For the definite description nature of {le}, which is its main
purpose, non-veridicality is irrelevant, and it would more likely to
be defined in terms of quantifiers in a formal logic.


On the contrary, the description, with its identificatory function, is
nonveridical; to put it another way, it has independent illocutionary
force of an identification, not an assertion; it is not part of the
propositional content of the main sentential illocution.


Sure, but why does that matter so much? This isn't a necessary part
of definite descriptions, as I see it. The logical structure of "The
cats are still in my garden" can be examined without bothering with
non-veridicality. Does {le} need to be different?


It is a necessary part of definite descriptions, since by definition definite descriptions comprise a referent and an illocutionarily identificatory description of it. IOW, {lo co'e voi'i ke'a broda} is simply an explication in Lojban of what a definite description is. Now, it's also the case that we have often taken le- to mean 'certain', and for that, {lo co'e noi ke'a broda} seems the appropriate Lojban explication. My reason for taking current le to be the voi'i version is that all the official documents insist it is nonveridical.

The logical structure of "the cats are still in my garden" must include identificatory illocutionary operators, which is bothering with nonveridicality.

[...]

One could now argue about whether this is more appropriate as a
definition of {le} rather than {lo}, but the point is that this is
the kind of thing I would understand to be an actual definition.


So now, for the noi and the voi'i versions, you can have one for le-.


Questions of veridicality are at another level, and in my opinion
they are not specific to {le}. We know that the possible referents of
{lo} vary wildly between domains, and in practice it doesn't matter
if {lo broda} is used to refer to something that actually doesn't
broda but which everyone thinks does broda, because the logical form
is unaffected by this, it's only the domain that's different.


You're failing to recognize that literal nonveridicality is just a byproduct of the illocutionary type involved.


It comes prebaked into le- gadri,


Out of necessity or simply for historical reasons?


As English shows, {lo co'e voi'i ke'a broda} and {lo co'e noi ke'a broda} are each sensical and useful and pretty necessary; and for historical reasons it was the former that originally seems to have been intended, tho at least by the time we get to Lojban, it all seems to have got garbled in transmission, and by the time John Cowan had to make sense of it to write CLL, there was a doctrinaire culture adjuring him to try to document things as they already were.


but for any other identificatory
phrase it's needed. E.g. for something like "the day of the week that we
got married on", referring to Tuesday (without claiming we got married
on Tuesday), "lo day-of-the-week identificatory-poi we got married on
ke'a" -- much as Pierre's orangutan example.


lo jeftydei poi ca ke'a mi'o spesimbi'o
the weekday on which we got married

What problems do you see with this?


Illocutionarily different from the original; it makes {ca ke'a mi'o spesimbi'o} part of what is asserted (or part of the propositional content of whatever the sentential illocution is).

Without it, you lose a bit of needed functionality, but you don't wreck
the (putative) logical foundations of the language.


I do not see what would be lost by ignoring non-veridicality as a
defining characteristic of {le} and by acknowledging it as a general
part of human speech.


That misunderstands. Loose use -- sloppy match between what is said and what is described -- is not the same as the nonveridicality of definite descriptions, where the nonveridicality is merely a conspicuous consequence of the illocutionary force. So what is gained or lost by nonveridicality as a defining characteristic of {le} is precisely the illocutionary difference between {voi'i} and {noi}.

--And.

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