Subject: RE: [lojban] Could this be it? (was: I like chocolate)

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 03:54:03 +0000

la and cusku di'e

>Actually, I think I need to backtrack. If the world is
>conceptualized in such a way that {lo'e broda cu brode} is
>true, then under the same conceptualization, {da broda} is
>perforce true. In the same way, if {la tom brode}, then
>necessarily {da me la tom}.

All right. I'm not sure that the reconceptualization is really
necessary though. It may be just two ways of looking at the
same thing. For the moment I'm more comfortable with the
non-referring expression, but I can't think of any obvious
conflict with the world reconceptualization view. I'm not sure
what would happen with your view if you mix {lo'e broda} and
{lo broda} in the same bridi for example, but even then I think
it can be done.

>Okay, but for me, {lo'e gerku} has a referent, in 'the corresponding
>world', which is a world in which there is one dog (which IMO does
>not exclude This World -- it includes This World to the extent that
>This World can be conceptualized as containing exactly one dog).

But in some cases you may need to conceptualize it as containing
one dog for some purpose and many dogs for another purpose at the
same time:

ci le mi gerku cu terpa lo'e gerku
Three of my dogs are afraid of dogs.

This is not necessarily a problem, but it complicates the picture
a bit.

>I am inclined to disagree. {zo arktik glico cmene lo'e traji
>berti}, {zo djeimzbond cmene lo'e skino prenrdjeimzbondu}
>("The far north is called 'Arctic'", "James Bond of the JB films
>is called 'James Bond'") -- I don't see why the lo'e phrases
>can't be coreferential with {la arktik}, {la djeimzbond}.

In my view, they can't be coreferential because names refer and
{lo'e broda} doesn't. In this example you could have just said
{le traji berti} and {le prenrdjeimzbondu} and give a name to
those. In a world where their names refer, the {le} description
can refer too. Using {lo'e} still gives a meaningful sentence, but
not one that assigns a name. It only says something about the
name, the kind of thing it names.

>Likewise {zo xorxes cu cmene lo'e me la xorxes} or
>{zo xorxes cu cmene lo'e du la xorxes}.

Both are true, but from my point of view {lo'e me la xorxes}
does not refer. The sentences only say what kind of thing
zo xorxes is a name of. A very precise kind of thing in this
case: a xorxes.

> > {la tom cu blabi} does entail {da blabi}, no argument about
> > that, and of course in worlds with unicorns one could be called
> > Tom. In words with no unicorns, there can't be a unicorn called
> > Tom, obviously, but {lo'e pavyseljirna cu blabi} can still be true.
> > Indeed in those worlds {lo'e pavyseljirna cu pavyseljirna} is true,
> > "unicorns are unicorns", and {da pavyseljirna} is false.
>
>Here again we disagree, though perhaps not fundamentally.
>The way I'm seeing things, two contradictory statements can
>be simultaneously true of one and the same world, e.g
>{re da vi djacu}, {ci da vi djacu} -- both could be true of
>one and the same objective circumstance (e.g. as seen in a
>photograph), depending on how amounts of water are to be
>individuated. But the two sentences can't be simultaneously
>true in one and the same conceptualization of the world.

Ok.

>To me, {lo'e broda} conventionally implies (in the Gricean
>sense -- i.e. it is linguistically encoded, but outside the
>scope of what is asserted) {pa da ?p/?noi ce'u broda}.

For the moment I can't find a problem with that, and it may
be equivalent to the non-reference without change of world
conceptualization. I have to think more about it, or see more
examples.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com