Re: On {lo} and existence

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge:
> > >     true(proposition346,universe-of-discourse,1)
> > > And I won't ask you in what universe is that last one claimed to be
> > > true, or we may never get to the end of it.
> > I think it amounts to a claim independent of worlds, in that it has
> > the same truth value in all worlds.
> Perhaps something like:
>        true(proposition347,every world,1)
> But in what world do we evaluate this one? It has to be a world that
> contains every world for the predication to make sense.

Irrespective of which world you normally inhabit, to evaluate
true(p346,...) you hop over to universe-of-discourse & check that
p346 is true. To evaluate true(p347,....) you go to each world
& check p347 is true of it.

> Language is a part of the world, and therefore references to imaginary
> worlds, which occur within language, are within the world that contains
> the language. I just don't see the point of invoking worlds external
> to the world that contains the language. You may talk about them, (as
> we are now doing), but since they are in our minds, they are in this
> world in which we are talking.

That's okay, as long as we distinguish real from imaginary. I don't
mind imaginary worlds being within the real world, so long as they're
not real.

> > > How can you tell whether the world place has been filled? Is there any
> > > utterance for which it is clear from the grammar, or is it always
> > > pragmatics?
> > It depends on the grammar. If the grammar says that in the absence of
> > an attitudinal the world place is filled by the u-of-d, then that's
> > that. If the grammar doesn't say what fills the world place, then
> > again, that's that - it is to be worked out ("glorked", in Cowanese)
> > from context.
> I suppose we disagree on what the universe of discourse is.
> How do you define u-of-d other than as that glorked world of yours?

Yes, u-of-d was a singularly bad choice. Change the example: the
grammar may say that the world place is filled by the same world
as the one the utterance happens in, or by a world different from
the one the utterance happens in.

> Your argument that "bachelor" is "single male adult" or something like
> that in "all worlds" doesn't convince me, because granted that, you have
> to define "single", "male" and "adult". At some point you are going to
> run out of predicates, and you either fall into circularity (like
> dictionaries do) or you must take refuge in God-given predicates that
> are well defined for all worlds. Those "primitive" predicates can
> only be defined by listing all the things that satisfy them. If the
> lists are different in different worlds, then the predicates have
> different meanings in different worlds. So, in effect, you are dealing
> with a different language, which makes sense, because the language is
> contained in a different world.

I don't know how to cope with primitives, though I do think having
them is better than not having them. Say we go for your extension-
listing method. Then we have a definition like this:
 {<world1, {a,b}>,<world2, {c,d,e}>,<world3, {f}>}
- one world-independent definition.

> But there we know what the design is already. What is the design's
> intention with respect to pictures of goats? Can {lo kanba} be only
> a figment of someone's imagination? Probably not according to the
> design. If fluent speakers use it as such, then obviously the design
> is not a good description of the real language.

Or, as I would put it, those fluent speakers are speaking a different
language/dialect.

> > > I'm against {nu} being {da'i} then, inherently or implicitly.
> > So will you from now on say {mi troci lo dahi nu mi klama}?
> No. I will continue, as I've always done, to say {mi troci le nu mi klama}.
> I don't think I've used {lo nu} very much. Usually with events I have a
> particular one in mind, and there's no need to use non-specificity.

I don't have a particular one in mind when I'm trying to do something.

---
And