Re: LE and VOI

[HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>]

On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, HACKER G N wrote:

>
> On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure whether this is grammatical, but I think it may be
> > possible to contrast "le da poi" (specific, veridical) with
> > "le da voi" (specific, nonveridical).
>
> I know that there are issues involving sumti quantification where you can
> put an article before a pro-sumti, but to my knowledge it has never been
> done to express veridicality. Perhaps this will do in a crunch where you
> need to express both specificity and veridicality at once.

No, I take it back. Assuming that using "le" is grammatical like this,
what you would in fact be saying with "le da poi" is "the DESCRIBED
something that really is..." People may be able to figure out what you
really meant anyway, but the limitation caused by that forced choice
between specificity and veridicality is still there. But at least "da voi"
by itself does make for non-specificity and non-veridicality, although
this again is an attack on our conceptual faculty to know specific things
about the universe, because it moves us even further away from that state
of affairs. We can't express specificity and veridicality, but we can
expres non-specificity and NON-veridicality!

Geoff