Subject: Re: [lojban] "knowledge as to who saw who" readings

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 10:44:01 EDT

In a message dated 10/12/2001 7:41:54 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<>   su'o da poi grute ku'o su'o de poi pelxu zo'u da du de
>   For some x which is a fruit and some y which is yellow, x=y.

> I must be misusing "reference" then. To me that sentence has the
> same sense as {su'o da grute gi'e pelxu}, and I perceive no
> reference there, it's a statement about the world, but not
> about any of its things in particular. How do we call the
> reference that occurs in a term like {ko'a}, as opposed to
> this "reference" of {su'o da} that doesn't point to anything?
> This is just meant as a question of vocabulary>

I think I am misunderstanding the question. I would distinguish your two 
sentences (and {su'o da pelxu grute}) by saying that they all refer to more 
or less the same fact, but that thye do so in very different ways.  
Operationalizing "sense" as a search for reference (useful, if not always 
entirely accurate), I would say the first says that a search for a fruit and 
a search for ayellow thing sometimes end at the same thing. The second say 
that a search for one thing that is both yellow and a fruit will be 
successful, just as the third (parenthetical) says that the search for a 
yellow fruit will be successful. All of these are pointing at the existence 
of bananas, say.  

{ko'a} refers, if at all, either by pointing -- pretty much literally -- or 
by a contextual set of directions. {da} doesn't of itself refer at all but 
guarantees some outcome of a search for objects of some sort. Sorry this is 
vague.