Re: [WikiDiscuss] Re: BPFK gismu Section: Parenthetical Remarks in Brivla Definition

On 9/27/06, John E. Clifford <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], "Jorge Llamb=EDas" <jjllambias@...> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not sure how the purport of a sentence could be that one of the
> > referring expressions used (as opposed to mentioned) in the sentence
> > have no referent.
>
> (no da me lo broda} or even {no da du lo broda)

OK.

Unless {no da} is interpreted as being implicitly restricted (i.e as
{no da [poi ...]) then I would take those sentences to be uninterpretable
or necessarily false.

People don't usually utter uninterpretable or necessarily false sentences,
so in ordinary circumstances if someone utters such a sentence they
will be understood as having some unexpressed restriction in mind.


> > > > Model_0: Does not contain p in its theory.
> > > > Model_1: Includes p and turns out to be inconsistent, so the model
> > > is ditched.
> > > > Model_2: Includes the theory of Model_0 plus ~p. The examination of
> > > Model_1
> > > > was helpful to determine that Model_0 could be expanded to Model_2.
> > >
> > > "Had to be expanded" is perhaps more to the point. A situation
> > > ultimately must contain all the logically entailled + claims. But
> > > that is not entirely relevant here.
> >
> > p could be a new proposed axiom rather than just a theorem of the
> theory.
> > If it was logically entailed by the truths of Model_0, it was as you
> say,
> > already in Model_0.
>
> The fact that the reductio works ed showed tht it was.

What if p makes reference to some new object not included in the
domain of Model_0?

> > When it comes to ordinary discourse, seen as a process of model
> > building, most new sentences will be incorporated as new axioms since
> > what already follows from already extant axioms are usually trivialitie=
s
> > that noone would bother uttering.
>
> The point is, as usual, that we can sometimes add these new axioms
> without having to expand the domain, even though the addition appears
> to contain a referring expression.

And from my point of view, Lojban sentences that appear to contain a
referring expression always do in fact contain a referring expression
(or else are uninterpretable).


>  I gather that you think that the problem only arises
> when there are explicit quantifiers involved, which is a useful way to
> deal with the deep structure.

Basically yes.

> But ordinary languages seem to create
> these contrasts without making the the quantifiers explicit and I
> think Lojban should be able to do this as well-- while still keeping
> -- and making explcit -- the distinction betweeen the two readings.
> Note that the official line does just that; the problem being only
> that what that official pattern points to does not seem to be the
> right sort of thing.

Yes, the official (CLL) line has {lo broda} =3D {su'o lo broda}. That's
why I don't like implicit quantifiers.

> Still, we can mark the difference and worry about
> what is actually going on later.
> The interesting fact is that the two quantified forms are not
> interchangable even when there is only one unicorn in the domain. I
> can want a unicorn (narrow reading) other than the unicorn there
> happens to be -- to deny this flies in the face of what we all do
> constantly.

From my perspective, "a unicorn other than the unicorn there
happens to be" will have a referent too, if expressed with a referring
term. (Of course you could always say something like
{ko'a goi lo pa pavyseljirna zo'u mi djica lo du'u su'o da pavyseljirna
gi'e na du ko'a}, but then there is no reference to a unicorn other than
the only unicorn.)


> > One can claim that someone wants it or that someone doesn't
> > want it, but it makes no sense to distinguish "a particular one of them
> > is such that the person wants it" from "the person wants just any one
> > of them".
> Sure, if you are talking about wanting *it,* but wanting a unicorn is
> not the same as wanting it, even if it is the only unicorn there is.

You may not like this usage of English "it", but:

A: I want something.
B: What is it that you want?
A: A unicorn.
(later)
B: Did you get it?
A: What?
B: What you wanted, a unicorn.
A: No, I didn't get it yet.

sounds perfectly normal English to me, even with the "any unicorn" sense.


> > Our
> > disagreement is about whether or not we can have a model where
> > a single thing is the referent of an expression with that single thing
> > having a generic or type interpretation.
>
> In fact, we haven't talked about this at all for some time, and not
> very precisely even earlier. If this is what you think the arguemnt
> is about, then you really need to explain what a type or a generic
> interpretation of a thing is.

I thought that's what I have been doing.

> {lo broda} refers to brodas, as you
> kept insisting a few threads ago, to the several of them (how many,
> which ones, even whether existent or not, not specified),

Not "the several of them". It may be the one and only too. Number is
not specified in any way.

> not to some
> one thing of which these were parts or some such relation. Has all
> this changed? Why? And why would we want this unknown object in Lojban?

I want it because it makes the language expressive and easy to use, without
losing its logicality.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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