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Lojbab: > Nora and I talking have agreed that one solution to the gadri problem > should be considered, that I don't think has been mention (though I may > have implied it). It would probably also move us closer to the TLI > Loglanists, and it would be consistent with other aspects of Lojban I don't see the point of these proposals. Either take a fundamentalist position, and define and explicate existing cmavo in a way that is consistent with CLL, and add extra new cmavo if there is a general demand for them, or else let us independently of the existing cmavo see what the best gadri system would be, and then consider how that could be mapped onto the existing system with minimally disruptive changes. > That change would be to make "le" (and perhaps the entire "le" series) the > 'basic gadri' which would be +nothing-in-particular and -veridical. The lo > series would add +veridical. Individual cmavo would be added for +specific > +opaque +intensional or any other feature deemed important enough to > warrant making a logical distinction, but "le" makes no such distinctions > and is metaphysically null. (lei, le'e and le'i would each be adding > features to the null article consistent with their current definition, but > le could be used to cover a lei or a le'i.) -veridical is pointless except in combination with +specific. If +opaque or +intensional are to be marked by UI, they could equally well be added to o-gadri. Indeed, that would make far more sense than adding them to e-gadri, and the current definition of e-gadri could be left intact instead of being discarded as per your proposals. There is no call for distinguishing +opaque from +intensional. As far as your proposal goes, it represents a retrograde step compared to the current system. We still don't have intensional gadri, but nor have we decided what intensional gadri we would need if we weren't working within the constraints of the existing system, so it is premature to just throw a new UI at it & think the matter solved. > The English usage that I once made "speaker in mind" would be interpreted > the way I intended, which is > -specific in that the speaker may not necessarily have specific object(s) > in mind, or even extant in some world, but merely that there is a reference > being invoked, which is defined within the speaker's mind, which he is > trying to evoke in the listener I have no idea what you mean. "there is a reference being invoked, which is defined within the speaker's mind" sounds like a description of +specific. > I believe this is consistent with usage if not with CLL wording (and I'm > not sure it is far from the wording), matches the null-default practices of > tense and other portions of the language. I am not sure that I much care > what happens to the "default quantifiers" in all this except that lo/loi > should assume a reference to a minimal subset of those referenced by the > description and with the relevant feature (i.e. su'o/pisu'o outside > quantifier) and the "in-mind-described" le and "in-mind-named" la should > refer to all of those that are in-mind (ro/piro outside quantifier). It > also allows us a clear and logical solution to all the problems that we've > come up with using one cmavo apiece for each added feature. The only > negative is that a very complicated set of features will be a long > gadri-string (the added feature cmavo could probably be UI), but this is > consistent - an elaborate tense claim is also long-winded > > Only slightly related to this, and I am less sure that it is supported in > CLL/usage: > I think that if du'u abstractions refer to facts/relations in the real > world i.e. being realized, si'o abstractions might be used to refer to > facts/relations that might or might not be realized or realizable. This > would clearly allow "le sidbo" a si'o abstraction, to refer to a possibly > unrealizable, but imaginable relationship. I'm sure I've talked of si'o in > that way before, but I think I've also talked about si'o as the neutral, > least restrictive featured abstraction, and I would have to withdraw that > understanding (again, no idea how this would match CLL policy.) This seems pretty much in violation of CLL and usage, but it is true that si'o currently does not seem very useful. But that goes for most of NU too. --And.