Subject: RE: lo'e (was: Re: [lojban] ce'u

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 20:58:40 +0100

Adam:
> la and. cusku di'e
> 
> > What I like about this is firstly that it would settle what lo'e and
> > le'e mean:
> >
> > lo'e gerku (be zo'e)
> > = lo(i) ka ce'u gerku zo'e
> > = lo(i) ka gerku [under most-favoured proposals]
> >
> > le'e gerku (be zo'e)
> > = le(i) ka ce'u gerku zo'e
> > = le(i) ka gerku [under most-favoured proposals]
> 
> What is the difference between "le ka gerku" and "lo ka gerku"? Is
> there more than one "ka gerku", given a certain value for all those
> "zo'e"s?

To take the second question first, this is an important one. Given a
certain value for the zo'es, the answer is a straightforward No, but
it is not established that the sentence meaning guarantees that there
is a certain value for all those zo'es. When you quantify over 
abstractions, do zo'e have scope inside or outside the abstraction 
(that is, is there reference/binding fixed inside or outside the 
abstraction)? My own preferred but totally unofficial rule for zo'e 
is that it is a variable bound by an existential quantifier with 
maximally narrow scope, so zo'e are bound within the abstraction,
and hence {ro ka broda cu pa mei}. However, if there is no specific
rule for the binding/reference-fixing of zo'e (and if its reference
can be fixed arbitrarily within the abstraction, i.e so that it can't
be exported to prenex of main bridi), then {na ku ro ka broda cu pa 
mei}, because there'd be as many {ka broda} as there are construals of 
the zo'e within it. IMO that would be a Bad Thing, because all
abstractions would become intolerably vague, except to glorkjunkies.

As for the first question, if (as I would like to maintain), there is
exactly one {ka gerku}, then the difference between {le ka gerku} and
{lo ka gerku} is purely one of veridicality. I think that difference
is a pretty trivial one (because the nonveridicality seems pretty
pointless), but at any rate, it is, I am claiming, the difference
between {le'e} and {lo'e}.

--And.