From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Sat Nov 03 17:56:57 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 4 Nov 2001 01:56:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 83103 invoked from network); 4 Nov 2001 01:56:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m8.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 4 Nov 2001 01:56:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta06-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.46) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 4 Nov 2001 01:56:56 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.43.228]) by mta06-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20011104015654.ULAG21455.mta06-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sun, 4 Nov 2001 01:56:54 +0000 Reply-To: To: "Lojban@Yahoogroups. Com" Subject: RE: [lojban] lo with discourse-scope? Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 01:56:11 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <3BE2C10C.5060501@reutershealth.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin John: > And Rosta wrote: > > > "An/This Englishman walks into an Irish pub. He goes up to the bar and..." > > > > Which Englishman? > > It doesn't matter -- any old Englishman. > > So not {le glico} then? > > No. > > I disagree: I think this is "le glico (bi'u)" = +specific -definite. > It's true that there's no particular Englishman in the Real World > that you are referring to, but he is quite specific in the Joke World. Does he have a particular identity that has to be established before the truth of the statement can be evaluated? (that being the criterion of specificity) I can't readily think of any arguments pro and con your point. But I do perceive a difference between "In the forest there lived a poor woodcutter" or "An/this Englishman walks into an Irish pub", on the one hand (jokes, fairy tales), and, on the other hand, an indefinite NP introducing a character in a novel. The difference seems to be whether there is backstory; the novel is a window onto a whole (fictional) world, while the joke or fairystory world contains only what is in the story itself. So if a novel begins with "A policeman drew up in a squad car", the reader may legitimately (according to conventions of the genre) ask "Which one?", even if no answer is available, whereas with jokes or fairystories the "which?" question is inappropriate. I'm not sure what the implications of this are for gadri choice, but I'm not convinced that "le glico" is okay. > > So what we need is a way to indicate an existential quantifier that > has scope > > over an entire text? > > Yes. > > And how do we do that? > > I've no idea. I'll ask The List. > > If you want to do that, then use a prenex before tu'e...tu'u: > > da poi glico zo'u tu'e [as many sentences as you want] tu'u Good. This is what I was after, though you can still try to persuade me that I don't need it. --And.