From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Sun Jul 16 05:11:49 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 18649 invoked from network); 16 Jul 2000 12:11:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 16 Jul 2000 12:11:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO relay3-gui.server.ntli.net) (194.168.4.200) by mta1 with SMTP; 16 Jul 2000 12:11:48 -0000 Received: from m191-mp1-cvx1c.gui.ntl.com ([62.252.12.191] helo=andrew) by relay3-gui.server.ntli.net with smtp (Exim 3.03 #2) id 13Dn7f-0005Sp-00 for lojban@egroups.com; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:02:15 +0100 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] A defense of dead horse beating Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:11:45 +0100 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: <20000710235551.47101.qmail@hotmail.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" Jorge: > la and cusku di'e > >No: I think {da voi broda} means "Ex 'broda'(x)", where '' > >indicate nonveridicality. For example, "Some fucker has farted" > >could be "da voi gletu cu ganxo zei [sneeze]". {da voi broda} > >is nonreferential (= nonspecific). > > Ok, that is a difference from {su'o le gletu} > (shouldn't it at least be {malgletu}?) > > But {su'o le gletu} is a non-specific reference to > a member of a specific group. > > >What are you saying is equivalent to what? I don't get what you're > >arguing for. > > I was trying to say that {ro lo broda} is as specific or as > non-specific as {ro le broda}. In one case the set where we > take the referents from is more general and in the other case > it is more particular and specific to the situation at hand, > but once the set is known we refer to each member so there > can be no specificity or non-specificity. That's right. > Similarly {su'o lo broda} and {su'o le broda} are both > non-specific references, to referents selected from the > same sets as before. > > I don't think you've argued against any of this, but I'm > just trying to point out that it is their default quantifiers > that give {le} and {lo} their specificity/unspecificity, > and that it can be overridden by explicit quantifiers. You're overstating. The 'determinacy' of the ultimate referent is indeed decided by the outer quantifiers (or by the set selected from being singleton: le/lo pa broda), but of course a specific/nonspecific reference remains embedded within the sumti. But I'm confident we agree about all this uncontroversial stuff. > >As for {ko'a poi broda} ?= {ro lo broda} = {ro broda} = {ro da poi > >broda}, I still can't see any basis for it. In fact, I'm not wholly > >sure what {ko'a poi broda} means, > > Neither am I, but I couldn't find anything else it could mean. > Of course we are assuming that {ko'a} has not already been > assigned, in which case things get really interesting. "which case" = if it has already been assigned, or if it hasn't? I still don't see how you get from {ko'a poi broda} to {ro broda}. I'm wondering whether {ko'a poi broda} might not simply be identical to {ko'a voi broda} = {le broda} with the difference that it is +veridical. Indeed, now that this thought occurs to me, I seem to recall that this (now obvious) point was made when I originally proposed the characterization of le and lo in terms of ko'a/da and voi/poi. > >though I'd be happiest if > >{ko'a poi broda cu brode} simply means {ko'a broda gi'e brode}. > > That's {ko'a noi broda}. {poi} is restrictive. I'm not sure about {noi} clauses. Their English counterparts have the characteristic of being outside the scope of the outermost illocutionary operators, & I don't know whether this is presumed to apply to noi too. --And.