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Nick:
> Thanks a bunch, And
>
> Unique != Intensional. We had already agreed on that
>
> I was just this morning (because you people have ruined Christmas Mass
> for me too)
a'o zabna dursalci
> thinking, "whatever the intensional is expressed as, it's
> not only individuals and {da} that can be intensionals. It's also
> masses and sets and the rest:
>
> mi djica lenu da poi gunma loi marjrxodiumu zo'u:
> mi cpacu du
>
> I want some xodium (whether or not it exists)
>
> So, unfortunately, this is true: since masses, sets, and individuals
> can all be intensional, intensionality cuts across these categories
>
> One solution (a solution I think pessimal) is to make this a gadcolumn
>
> Another solution (which I think preferable) is to leave the gadcolumns
> alone, and go propositionalist. After all (as I found in CLL to my
> delight), prenexes by default go to the innermost, not the outermost
> bridi --- so the default interpretation of {mi nitcu lenu mi tavla lo
> mikce} *is* "I want to talk to a doctor, any doctor", not "there's this
> particular doctor I want to talk to"
This forces a kind of ontological bias onto Lojban, namely that things
have to be construable as events. Which is probably not a good thing.
> Another solution, which I think easiest, is to do what we did with
> {kau}: just stick a UI on, and say "wherever that UI is, we quantify
> the referent right here, not in the prenex."
The first sounds right for AL. The last for SL. I suggest using {kau}
itself, which already can be seen as a general diacritic with a
certain amount of kludginess already accrued to it.
> So,
> {mi skicu loi xodiumu} presupposes that xodium exists
> {mi skicu loi XVV xodiumu}: I describe xodium [which is in a world
> where xodium exists]
>
> (... is XVV da'i?)
No. Neither in Organic nor IMO in Academic.
> I think there's a lot to be said for le...ce'u, though:
>
> I seek, using the template "X is xodium" in mind = mi sisku leka ce'u
> marjrxodiumu
>
> I describe, using the template "X is xodium" in mind = mi skicu leka
> ce'u marjrxodiumu?
>
> I draw some xodium = mi pixrygau fi leka ce'u marjrxodiumu?
>
> You know, these don't look half so bad to me
Now that I have backed away from allout propositionalism, I can see
the appeal of this more. But do we really want "I seek Nick" to be
{mi sisku LE ka ce'u du la nitcion}? "I seek intensional Nick"???
I don't think we do want to make every seekee intensional. of course
it is thus in SL, and this is not broken, but in AL I don't think
it should be thus.
> ---
>
> I see what you're also doing is saying:
>
> {le} is +specific -veridical
> {lo} is -specific +veridical
>
> If we had a -specific -veridical, we'd have the solution to our
> problems. Yes? Is that what you mean by 'presuppose'?
Yes. The logical essence of -veridical is, IMO, presupposition.
(And I have a personal story about how the logic of presupposition
works, which I won't go into again now.)
> I don't know that this is so. {le nanmu} presupposes that a referent of
> {le nanmu} exists, too, and conventionally claims of it {da nanmu},
> without vouching for it. But whatever {le nanmu} is, there is {su'o pa}
> of it. Right?
The sort of existence claimed for it is the sort of existence that
everything, even imaginary things have.
> If that's so, then [-specific -veridical] doesn't help. If you seek one
> of those as a unicorn, you're saying you're actually seeking something
> else instead. But you're actually seeking a nothing
Intensionals would ocunt as somethings. They exist in the Lojban sense
of 'zasti'.
> Let me try again. There is no six-letter gismu of Lojban, right?
>
> Can we say:
>
> mi nitcu lo xavlerfu gismu
>
> --- no, because that's
>
> su'o da poi xavlerfu gismu zo'u: mi nitcu da
>
> Can we say:
>
> mi nitcu le xavlerfu gismu
>
> --- depends on whether le X presupposes that it has a non-null
> referent. I think it does, but the CLL description of le is pretty
> opaque
We can say it. It's totally kosher. Its pragmatic acceptability
depends on the extent to which the description helps the hearer
to identify the referent.
> If you *can* say the latter, your proposed -spec -veridical might work
>
> Both politically and for reasons of logic formalisms familiar to me,
> I'd rather we not make up a gadri for this at all, but stick with ce'u
> and da'i
I'd say that SL should ignore it or use LE+kau.
> Or... why can't we just say
>
> mi nitcu lo su'o no xavlerfu gismu
Because the opaque reading doesn't say whether there are or aren't
any things of the kind being sought.
--And.