Re: le/lo

[Geoffrey Hacker <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>]

On Sun, 2 Nov 1997 bob@megalith.rattlesnake.com wrote:

>    ... it would seem extraordinary that the default context would
>    allow you to use {le} with rampant non-veridicality without some
>    clear guidelines for figurative or approximating use in place.
>
> Well ... that is the defined use of {le}; veridicality is for {lo}.

The point is not whether {le} gives you the freedom in principle to
deceive your listener, but whether there is any pragmatic justification
for doing so.

> You go on to say,
>
>    ... I see no compelling reason why someone would
>    want to trick you by using {le} to refer to something different enough
>    from the {le} description that it would cause you to infer the wrong
>    referent.
>
> You are making a false presumption that a reference to something
> `described as' is a trick.

I am not. It's only a trick when it is deliberately crafted so that you
will infer the wrong referent. Referring to a discussion as a quagmire can
hardly be a trick because the real referent is obvious.
>
>    .... Basic veridicality, with certain commonsensical side
>    constraints such as what I have already discussed, seems only
>    logical.
>
> No, since what you refer to as "Basic veridicality" is handled by
> {lo}, and specifically *not* by {le}.  For {le}, veridicality is *not*
> the measure!

An arbitrary position, since you have to assume that basic specificity has
to be the pragmatic presupposition for a *nonspecific* article like "lo".
There is no reason to prefer your use of articles to the way most
Lojbanists use them. Essentially, what you have is an idiolect.
 >
>    ... You don't need
>    to be in the dark about {le} because it should only be used when you will
>    know what the speaker does have in mind for a referent in the first
>    place, or at least when you will know that you won't have to worry about
>    what it is if you haven't got it quite yet.
>
> Knowing the specified referent does not tell me the referent is true.

? A referent cannot be "true" or "false". It can only either exist or not
exist.

>
> Your default assumptions in English, as indicated by:
>
>     ... you will tend to describe a cat as a cat.
>
>     If she really has two cats, there will be strong pragmatic
>     pressure on her to describe them as cats.
>
>     Basic veridicality, with certain commonsensical side constraints
>     such as what I have already discussed, seems only logical.
>
> suggest to me that you are misleading yourself and others when you use
> `that which I describe as'.  It appears to me you more likely mean
> `that which really is'.

I can flip that argument on its head and turn it against you. Your default
assumption that "lo" refers to a specific thing means that you are
misleading yourself and others because "lo" is nonspecific. Your argument
is nothing but completely ARBITRARY.

Essentially, there are two different, competing ways of interpreting "le"
and "lo":

(1) Use a non-veridical descriptor to be veridical by default - I agree
that that's confusing, but it's also the standard way it seems to be used
by Lojbanists.

(2) Use a non-specific descriptor to be specific by default - that's your
usage, and it's just as confusing, except that it's nonstandard.

Surely you can see that there is NO reason to prefer your interpretation,
(2), to (1). There's also no reason to prefer (1) to (2). THAT is how the
Lojban rules have been defined.

The real problem is that the le/lo distinction is crude. It forces a
choice between whether specificity is more important than veridicality,
but you will inevitably have to ignore one or the other aspects of the
articles. You ignore specificity, I ignore veridicality. But I use
articles in no more misleading a way than you do given the clumsiness of
the grammar in this distinction. I don't see that there's anything more to
argue about...

Geoff