Re: TECH:opaque (ex mass and le/lo)

["John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>]

On Mon, 18 Dec 1995, Jorge Llambias wrote:

> > Another example discussed here once was "that is a human head". I would
> > say {ta stedu lo'e remna}. You may want to say {ta stedu tu'a lo remna},
> > pc:
> > Why would I want to say that?  If it is a human head then there is a
> > very definite -- though presumably dead -- human whose head it is.
> > No opacity problems (basic rule is that the dead are always with
> > us, though the not-yet-born may not be).
>
> I wasn't thinking of dead bodies. Are you really suggesting that there
> can be no human heads that were never attached to a human? Suppose that
> in the year 3217 arificially produced human heads are sold in stores so
> that you may go and buy a new one just as you buy shoes. A human head
> is a perfectly conceivable object even in the absence of an instantiation
> of a human being. You may want to say "I saw a human head" without
> implying that there was a human whose head you saw.
>
> If you don't like the example of human heads, then how about horse-shoes.
> I would say {cutci lo'e xirma jamfu} = "shoe for horse-feet".
>
> Anyway, you obviously don't approve of my use of {lo'e} for the archetype
> rather than for the typical, but I find it much more useful, so until
> there is a better solution, I'll keep using {lo'e}.
>
> Jorge
>
I've no objection to _lo'e_ as an archetype; I just don't see what it has
to do with opaque contexts.  I am not hunting an archetype but a lion (or
whatever).  Maybe with a marker for an instantiation it would serve, but
then I fear that it will still be off in another world and so not allow
quantification in. As for the horse-shoes (and so for the future human
heads, head for humans, the human or the horse does indeed go opaque  --
but not archetypal -- the archetypal human would not get a new head --
and the head was, presumably, not custom-made, so there is nobody
(snigger!) for whom it the head, but, as usual, any-old human will do.
But notice that _stedu_ is the head *of* a human, not *for* one and this,
until it is bought, is not even an alienable possession of anyone. And,
as soon as it is bought, then there is a human whose head it is.
pc>|83