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

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 14:12:27 -0400

At 06:04 PM 07/17/2001 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>Lojbab:
> > At 03:32 AM 07/17/2001 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>[...]
> > >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.
>
>AFAI can see, it is a description in neither the technical sense of logic/
>linguistic philosophy, nor the everyday sense. At any rate, I meant
>'descriptions' in the technical sense of referential expressions that
>involve a propositional description of the referent. (As I said earlier,
>I remain corrigible.)
>
> > But le cribe and la cribe both are indicating a referent using the
> > description "bear"
>
>This is simply not true for la cribe. La cribe does not describe; it
>merely names.

le cribe doesn't necessarily describe either, since it is 
non-veridical. le nanmu need not be male or human, nor even to seem male 
or human, so long as the listener can identify the reference from the 
description. I don't much see the difference between this and "naming" 
except that the NORM with a le description is somewhat closer to being a 
veridical description than is the norm for a la description.

I'm not making a point about "goi ko'a". I mean to make the point
>that where X is the referent of "le broda", "le broda" expresses
>the bridi "X broda". This is not the case for "la broda".

But since it is non-veridical, it does not actually do so, because 
expressing the bridi in Lojban claims it as being true, which is precisely 
what "le" descriptions do NOT do.

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