Subject: RE: [lojban] questions about DOI & cmene

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 23:43:54 -0400

At 03:32 AM 07/17/2001 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>Lojbab:
> > At 10:58 AM 07/16/2001 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > > > I'll just say that in ex. 11.5 there doesn't seem to be a substantial
> > > > difference in meaning between his chosen expansion and mine, which 
> would
> > > > have use "la" instead of "le".
> > >
> > >Sure there is. I distinctly remember asking you whether "doi girl in
> > >the red dress" (Carter vocative) was intended to be veridical or non-v.,
> > >and you distinctly said non-v. There was no question of its meaning
> > >"O person named Girl In Red Dress!" which indeed is doi la etc.
> >
> > Umm, asking me veridical or non-v. doesn't to me differentiate between la
> > and le, since both are non-v. in that neither la xunre nor le xunre have to
> > actually be red. It differentiates between la/le and lo.
> >
> > Saying that there was no question of its meaning something doesn't tell me
> > whether it means it or doesn't mean it (I can read it either way), so which
> > are you concluding?
>
>I'm open to correction, but I believe veridicality and nonveridicality are
>properties of descriptions. LE sumti and LO sumti are descriptions. LA
>sumti are not descriptions.

LA + [description] is a description just as much as LE + [description] is a 
description, except that we are specifically using the description for 
naming purposes.

But le cribe and la cribe both are indicating a referent using the 
description "bear" with the la version having the additional information 
that I am calling the referent Bear. In neither case does the referent 
have to actually be a bear, so both are non veridical.

> "le broda goi ko'a" expresses the bridi "ko'a broda",

No it doesn't. The two are effectively equivalent, but I don't call one a 
definition of the other.

Actually it seems to me that "goi ko'a" is more like "noi se cmene zo 
ko'a", but I also don't consider that one definitional either.

>but indicates that the bridi is not being claimed to be true.
>"la broda goi ko'a" does not express the bridi "ko'a broda". Hence LA is
>not nonveridical (and nor is it veridical).
>
>Anyway, it follows that if you said that doi+selbri is nonveridical, then
>what you said entailed that it is a description, and hence John would have
>been quite right to conclude that "doi broda" means "doi le broda".
>Evidently he misunderstood you, but ha! it's too late now!

Probably neither of us realized the exact meaning of the question as 
interpreted by the other.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org