[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: RE: [jboske] loi'e & truthconditions (was: RE: carving the lo'e debate intoshape



de'i li 2002-10-25 ti'u li 16:41:00 la'o zoi. Jorge Llambias .zoi cusku di'e

>Right. But the relevant criteria for deciding whether
>"the Lion lives in Africa" is true is also about {xabju},
>not about {cinfo}. Isn't "the Lion lives in South Africa"
>true, even though most lions don't? Or is it false? Is there
>only one place where the Lion lives?

If we reconceptualize the world to have only one member, then
in general, if 'ro broda naku ge brode gi brodi' then I don't
think you can claim that 'loi'e broda ge brode gi brodi'.
I still think that 'loi'e' makes claims about individuals,
even if intensional individuals.
too.

>>I think it fairly clear that {lo'e} was supposed to do generics.
>>Everything else that CLL and John say is an attempt to explicate
>>that. Since, as our discussions show, generics are tricky, John's
>>explicatory efforts have not been wholly successful, and shouldn't
>>be taken as the last word on {lo'e}.
>
>I agree. I was just answering John's objections that {lo'e} could
>not be {lo'ei} because {lo'ei cinfo cu fetsi} can be true and
>{lo'e cinfo cu fetsi} can't according to CLL. I was pointing
>out that {loi'e cinfo cu fetsi} is true in the same contexts
>where {lo'ei cinfo cu fetsi} is true.

And can use 'loi'e' as he wants, since he made it up, but according
to my understanding, you would not attribute gender to 'loi'e cinfo'
when the gender division is about even. (I've heard that there are
more female caracals than males, so perhaps you could say 'loi'e
-caracal cu fetsi, but in general I wouldn't do it.)

>>Well, what is the right context? What state of affairs would
>>prevail in the world as we know it, such that we would claim
>>{da kalte loi'e cinfo}? I'd have thought that John might
>>accept that in that state of affairs {da kalte lo'e cinfo}
>>might also be appropriate.
>
>When we are discussing a person and what type of animals
>that person hunts, for example. In that context, seeing
>lions as the Lion would be appropriate. He hunts the Lion
>but never the Tiger.

For that person to say 'mi kalte loi'e cinfo', he would have
to be think that at the very least the lions he has hunted
make up a substantial part of 'lo'i cinfo' ('That makes
58; I must have gotten most of 'em by now.') In general,
I don't think that it would be an appropriate claim.

(And:)
>>"There is someone that hunts the one lion". Nothing wrong
>>with that, but if we're meaning it as a description of the
>>world in general as we know it, then it is perhaps inapt, for
>>in the process of abstracting away the differences between
>>lions, the fact that a few of them are hunted probably gets
>>lost. OTOH, if you examine every lion separately, but elect
>>to (temporarily) hold that they are the same individual, then
>>{da kalte loi'e cinfo} would be apt.

I don't understand this. If you examine every lion separately,
but hold that they are the same individual, do you hold that
any property of any one of the is a property of the one
individual? If so, then why not just say 'lo cinfo' and be
clear about it?

I think that it quite inapt to examine a specific lion and hold
that its properties are the properties of all lions/Mr. Lion, in
every circumstance. To use 'l[oe]i'e' you need a gestalt 
perspective on the entire set, and the underlying set for 'loi'e' 
is still 'lo'i'. You could abstract from an individual lion to 
'lei'e cinfo' of course, but in such a case you might as well say
'le cinfo'.

>We are examining a particular situation usually, not the
>world in general. Of course, in the absence of context,
>we turn our attention to the world in general, and then
>start thinking in terms of typicality and habituality.
>But {lo'e} is for particular situations too and mainly.

Are you saying that given a clear context, 'lo'i cinfo'
could mean the set of all iranian lions? I think that this
is wrong. When you use an o-gadri, you are explicitly
referencing the entire set, with no context or otherwise
limiting the set.

mu'o mi'e .adam.