LE and VOI

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

Geoff:
> I must admit, I don't like the
> use of "lo" to mean "the", but by the same time I can understand wanting
> to distinguish that which you describe from that which really is, and it
> seems irritating that Lojban should arbitrarily lump together into one
> word what is clearly two separate concepts: what is described versus what
> really is, and what you specifically have in mind as an instance of
> something versus no instance in particular. You have chosen as more
> important the really-is aspect of "lo", while most other people tend to
> choose the nonspecific aspect of it, but that they exist together in the
> same word is an unavoidable reality.
>
> Lojban really forces you not to talk about specific things that really
> exist, which seems not only a limitation, but a veritable attack on our
> conceptual faculty to know specific things about the universe. Maybe the
> philosphical skepitcs are right and this is true, but if so, it should be
> left up to the individual to decide this and not preprogrammed at the
> linguistic level, I think.
[...]
> I'd find it more useful to distinguish general from specific things,
> myself.

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).
Specificity can be understood as existential quantification
with scope outside the proposition that is the argument of
the illocutionary force (question, assertion, command, etc)
of the utterance.
Poi and voi can both be understood as propositions outside
the scope of the illocutionary force, with the difference
between them being that the POI proposition is incidentally
claimed to be true, while the VOI one is not claimed to be
true.
Thus while I certainly agree -- the archives will show I
bore arms in support of this view -- that specificity and
veridicality are distinct, and that specificity is more important
for most usage, they do have something in common, namely
scope over the illocutionary force.

--And