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

On 10/10/06, John E. Clifford <[email protected]> wrote:
> To say that my going to the store occurred five times this
> week is just another way of saying five my goings to the store
> occurred this week.

Agreed.

> It is useful to have two ways of saying this and,
> in fact, the domain of discourse is different for the two (one of the
> peculiarities discourse analysis revealed is that logically equivalent
> expressions may generate different domains of discourse -- it is not
> clear what the significance of this is).

OK.

> What is less clearly OK is
> using the same predicates at different levels -- or tryng to use them
> in the same way.

To me this seems inevitable. For suppose we identify two levels and
assign a different predicate to each level. The new predicates will
each be subject to the same treatment as the original predicate was,
and the process of differentiation would never end. (This is not to say
that it is not useful to introduce diferentiating predicates whenever
they are needed to make a distinction. What I think is impossible
is to make the distinction obligatory for all predicates in all contexts.)

> I admit I would prefer that there be a separate term
> for the nodal view -- if it is going to be used a lot. I don't really
> see it being used a lot, so I don't much care then.

Me neither. It's just a metalinguistic artifact anyway, not somehing
that needs to be reflected in the object language. When the object
language is used for some technical purpose then whatever
technical terminology is needed can be defined, but it's not
something that will be talked about in ordinary discourse.

> I think we will
> just use {lo broda} for any node on the broda lattice (when we don't
> specify the node at all). And attribute all manner of things --
> especially being a broda -- to it distributively.

Consider:

lo nu mi klama le zarci kei noi cacra li ji'i pa cu rapli li mu ca le cabjeftu
"My going to the store, which takes about an hour, was repeated 5 times
this week."

{rapli li mu ca le cabjeftu} is clearly not attributed distributively, since
it is not the case that each of my goings is repeated 5 times. What
about {cacra li ji'i pa}? I would argue that each of my goings had a
much more definite duration, and that it is only my going to the store,
generically, which takes about an hour, and that this predicate is
attributed personally to it. I don't know, however, if it makes any
difference what kind of metalinguistic analysis we make. The only
relevant question is whether we both would take {lo nu mi klama
le zarci kei noi cacra li ji'i pa cu rapli li mu ca le cabjeftu} as
describing the same situation or not.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


 
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