Re: le/lo

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

John to Bob:
> > Well ... that is the defined use of {le}; veridicality is for {lo}.
> > It may be extraordinary, but that how {le} and {lo} have been defined
> > for some years now.  Specifically, {le} is non-veridical.  Here is the
> > list of LE cmavo:
>
> That part of the cmavo list has not been updated since the discovery
> of the "specificity" category, but "le" has always been used for
> specific things.  Because of the specificity, the truthful
> applicability of the referential predicate has become logically
> irrelevant, as in my example above (which does not mean that it
> is pragmatically useless).

I may have misunderstood you, but in the case of specific referents,
nonveridicality is useful in identifying definite referents (i.e.
in identifying the referent to the addressee), but one still
of course wishes to predicate things veridically of specific
referents. I wouldn't agree that the veridicality of any
predicate is logically irrelevant.

> > For example, someone might say, `this discussion is a quagmire'.  The
> > person is not trying to trick you.  She is using a metaphor.  She is
> > saying
> >
> >     this discussion is not a veridical quagmire, but I am describing it
> >     as such, to indicate resemblances.
>
> Ah, but that sentence isn't translatable using "le/lo" before
> "quagmire": it is
>
>         le -discussion cu -quagmire
>
> and not either of
>
> a)      le -discussion cu du lo -quagmire
> b)      le -discussion cu du le -quagmire
>
> where (a) says that this discussion is identical with some actual
> quagmire (false), and (b) says that this discussion is
> identical with some specific thing I describe as a quagmire
> (not provably false, but bizarre).

I don't see why (b) is bizarre. It seems perfectly OK to me.

> "le co'e" is really "da" with a hint about the
> referent.

I don't think I'd buy that.

--And