"What goes in the x1 place of {munje}"?

[John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>]

A good question, and one that often comes up.  Originally "munje" had the
simple place structure:

        x1 is a universe/cosmos

which seems to ask the question "What kinds of things can go in x1, since
there is only one universe?"  The word "universe" is also used in English
in other ways, as illustrated by "universal set" and "universe of discourse",
so the place structure was revised to:

        x1 is a universe/cosmos (complete and ordered entirety)
                of domain/sphere x2 governed by rules x3

For >the< universe, x3 is something like "the laws of nature", and the
domain/sphere is hard to specify, but semantically would be equivalent to
"everything", perhaps {loi ro da}.  (Yes, that's grammatical because the
"ro" is present.)

People still persist in asking, however, what language construct might
fit into the x1 place.  I believe that this represents a hidden confusion
between concrete objects (for my purposes, the universe counts as concrete)
and their linguistic representations.  Consider the naive question: What
goes in the x1 place of "gerku"?

The naive answer is "A dog, any dog".  But when we look how to specify
such a thing, we bring in the word "gerku" again, leading to such pointless-
looking sentences as "lo gerku cu gerku".

This problem is inevitable in dealing with concrete objects of any sort.
Since an actual dog, call him Fido, cannot be part of a sentence -- a
sentence is a linguistic phenomenon, whereas a dog is not -- it is necessary
to insert a name, a deictic, or some other such thing:

        la faidos. gerku
        Fido is-a-dog.

        ti gerku
        This is-a-dog.

These solutions seem to fail for the universe.  Since there is only one,
we do not name it ("Universe #522334"?), nor does it seem easy to point
to it, so both "la zzzz. munje" and "ti munje" seem semantically anomalous.

In fact, the problem of either naming or pointing is no easier with any
concrete object.  When we name something for the first time, we are constrained
to point to it (ostentive definition) as a way of fixing the reference of the
name.  "See, that there?  That is Saturn."  However, how can we tell what
another person is pointing at specifically?  When I point at a man's face
and say "That is Nixon", am I naming the man -- or just his nose?  In
Lojban, we can resolve the paradox with:

        ti poi nazbi cu se cmene zo niksn.
        This which is-a-nose is-named "Nixon".

So the question "What goes in the x1 place of...." is really what is
semantically anomalous.  The answer is often "Something which cannot be
specified better except in a circular way."

Reference:  >Naming and Necessity<, by Saul Kripke -- a wonderful book,
if a bit difficult to chew on.

Sidenote:  Northrop Frye, in his >Anatomy of Criticism<, refers to the
ghost of Shakespeare, who when asked what he >meant< by such-and-such
an expression

        ...could only reply, with maddening iteration, "I >meant< it
        to form part of the play."

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.