From robin@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx Wed Apr 7 23:55:28 1999 X-Digest-Num: 107 Message-ID: <44114.107.589.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 09:55:28 +0300 From: Robin Turner la robin cusku di'e [cut] > > >The veridical/non-veridical distinction is > >semantic, while the known/unknown distinction is pragmatic. We need to > >decide which takes precedence, and unfortunately the book is not terribly > >helpful here. > > I'm not sure we have a choice as to which takes precedence. > First of all, there is a semantic distinction even if we ignore the > veridicality property. {le cipni} is by definition the same as > {ro le su'o cipni} = "each one of the at least one bird which we're > discussing". {lo cipni} is by definition the same as {su'o lo ro cipni} > = "at least one of all the birds that there are". > The second is undoubtedly true, but I would render {ro le su'o cipni} as "each one of the at least one of things that I am calling a bird". Using "we're discussing" brings another person into the equation, and I don't think {le} _logically_ implies this, though. > > You strongly need pragmatics in the case of {le} to determine > what are _all_ the birds, and much more weakly in the case of {lo}, > but aside from that, there is an important semantic difference: > the implicit quantifier! Once you have used pragmatics to identify > the complete set of birds (all those under discussion, in the case > of {le}, often only one, and all those that there are, in the case of > {lo}), usually a large number, we are still left with the quantifier: > using {le} you refer to all the members of the set, and therefore > once you've identified the set you need no further identification. > Using {lo} you only say some property applies to at least one of > the members of the set, but you never identify which member. > This is a semantic difference, not pragmatic. Your claim in one > case applies to an identified referent and in the other case to > an unidentified one. Maybe the confusion lies in the use of "that" the English glosses: "that which I call" and "that which really is". What precisely does "that" mean here? The normal deictic use of "that" would make both {le} and {lo} refer to a particular thing - I was assuming that this was not the case, but rather that {le cipni} = something that I call a bird {lo cipni} = something that really is a bird (leaving aside the problematic nature of "really is"). I can see no _semantic_ justification for treating one "that" as deictic and not the other. > > >> If there are no clues in the context > >> about which apple or which table I mean, then I should > >> not have used {le}. > > > >This is hard to justify in terms of Lojban semantics as they currently > >exist, which enable one to use {le} for anything except for cmene. > > Not really. For example, I can't use {le} here: > > le ci verba cu citka lo plise > Each of the three children eats an apple. > > In that example with {lo} each child might be eating a different apple. > Had I used {le plise}, the meaning necessarily would have been that > each child ate the same apple (or apples, but each child eats them all). > I don't think {le} demands this, though it may suggest it. Going back to the discussion of proverbs, you made the same point about my > le lajgerku na batci le lajgerku > which you said meant that no dog bites itself". This is not necessarily true, just as in English "the dog didn't bite the dog" could mean either "the dog didn't bite itself", or, more probably, "the dog didn't bite the other dog". In classical (truth conditional) semantics, both interpretations are possible, but in pragmatic terms, in English, Lojban and every other language I know, the former meaning would be expressed by a reflexive. [cut] > > >Perhaps, post-baseline, the best thing to do is scrap {lo} altogether. > > I'm not sure we can at this point. In any case, if we were to choose > one single article the best one would be {lei} rather than {le}, but > that's for another discussion. {.a'u.ue} I find {lei} quite useful. Consider the difference between mi se batci le gerku mi se batci lei gerku mi se batci le ci gerku mi se batci lei ci gerku co'o mi'e robin.