From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Sat Feb 10 11:29:28 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@newmail.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_3); 10 Feb 2001 19:29:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 67305 invoked from network); 10 Feb 2001 19:29:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 10 Feb 2001 19:29:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO newmail.net) (212.150.54.158) by mta3 with SMTP; 10 Feb 2001 20:30:30 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.252.13.172]) by newmail.net ; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 21:28:57 +0200 To: "lojban" Subject: RE: [lojban] RE:su'u Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 19:28:27 -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 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 In-Reply-To: X-eGroups-From: "And Rosta" From: "And Rosta" Jimc: > On Fri, 9 Feb 2001, And Rosta wrote: > > Lojbab: > > > I is a mere label assigned by the speaker, hopefully allowing > > > communication, like "le" descriptions. > > > > "le" descriptions aren't a mere label. They describe the referent, > > even though the description is not claimed to be true. > > I don't think that's quite the right distinction. In JCB's famous > example: "Hey, the woman is a *man*!", the whole point is that the sumti > after "le" is not veridical and everyone (now) knows it. I read this to > imply: > > You choose the sumti so the listener gets some help identifying which > referent you're talking about. It would be cheating to say "the cat is a > man", unless he were dressed up in a feminine cat costume. > > But the sumti is not a description. A description is a very heavy > commitment by the speaker and is veridical. A "le" sumti has a different > purpose and a different, lesser weight than a description. I agree with your characterization of how "le" works. We appear to differ about whether there is such a thing as a nonveridical description; I think there is, you think there isn't, and the difference of opinion is probably merely terminological. --And.