Re: tech:opaque

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

> &: should we propose that to CAhE we add two cmavo for "true of the
> real world" and "true not necessarily of the real world", with the
> former being the default?
> pc: In fact, we have those already, _ca'a_ and  _ka'e_.  Maybe we
> need something explicitly about stories (my list still has _ci'a_
> free, but is badly out of date, I suspect)

I would welcome a discussion on the meaning of the members of CAhA.
I realize that there is a brief one in TENSE.TXT, but, as I recall, it
rather takes for granted that an English speaker will understand them
by their glosses.

  ca'a CAhA  actually is          actuality/ongoing event
  ka'e CAhA  innately capable of  innate capability; possibly unrealized
  nu'o CAhA  can but has not      can but has not; unrealized potential
  pu'i CAhA  can and has          can and has; demonstrated potential

So far as I can make sense of these, they mean something like the
following:
  kae = is true in some world(s) (but maybe not this one)
  pui = is true in some world(s), including this one
  nuo = is true in some world(s), but not this one
There may also be an epistemic component - an explicit "as far as I know";
let me, for a while, assume that there is.

I'm not clear how {caa} fits into this picture. Could it be that {caa}
locates the bridi in the primary world of the discourse? Then indeed
{caa} would, as you say, be one of the two cmavo I was looking for.
But I don't see a counterpart to {caa} that shifts the bridi into a
world that is not necessarily the primary world of the discourse;
may we adopt {cia} for this purpose?

In the picture that emerges, there are then two sets of oppositions:
caa v. cia; and (the epistemic series) kae v. pui v. nuo.
[preferably with prescribed default caa & pui]

Now, let me assume that kae/pui/nuo contain no epistemic component. In
that case, I see no need for {caa} or {cia}. Enlightened by pc, I
see that {pui} does "is true in this world", while {kae} does "is
true not necessarily in this world".

> &: {xee} meant "any old broda whatsoever", which I think amounts, in
> effect, to the same thing as "the quantification on this sumti does
> not belong in the bridi the default rules would locate it in".
> I vaguely remember {xee} being in LE or PA, but LAhE is a better
> selmao for it.
> pc: I don't see that reading: "any old broda whatever" just draws from
> whatever the established interpretation of _broda_ is, it says
> nothing about how that is established and does not obviously
> change that establishment.  I think x wanted to have a leaper, that
> would guarantee that the _broda_ down in a _nu_ clause was
> drawn from the external assignment.  So, the goal is right (though
> more directed) but the reading is questionable.

If we translate "any old ... whatsoever" into pred logic we appear to
get one of two patterns: (I) universal quantification with scope over
an irrealis element; (II) existential quantification within a subordinate
proposition. These may amount to the same thing but I'm not logician
enough to work it out.
For (I) we would require a "leaper" marker, and for (II) an "opacity"
marker. But (I) can already be done in forethought, so (in the absence
of a comprehensive system of afterthought scope indicators) is unwarranted.
That leaves (II) - a marker meaning "the quantification on this sumti does
not belong in the bridi the default rules would locate it in".

> &:
> > We need (in the current depressing state of the language)
> why depressing?
> pc: Because it is getting further and further from a natural language
> commonality (if not universal) and so harder and harder to say
> normal things.  And all for no visible purpose, either practical or
> theoretical.

I agree with Iain:
    I contend that one of the things that Lojban in particular highlights
    is that things that we express "simply" in natlangs frequently aren't
    at all simple.

Ultimately, Lojlan is speakable predicate logic, with various added
sugar.

> &
> You're probably right, but we ought to agree on what this new LAhE
> would mean. We already agree that this new LAhE is not needed to
> make the hitherto unsayable sayable [unlike the new CAhA, which
> would make the unsayable sayable]; so by normal standards, the new
> LAhE shouldn't be adopted, but your advocacy is given privileged
> attention.
> pc:
> I am not clear what the new CAhA says that can't be said already
> (see above, with appropriate added notes, from BAI, I think).

I agree that {kae} can do the job of {cia}, so long as {kae} really
is defined just as "is true in some world (not necessarily this one)".
I see nothing else that can do the same job, except for really
long circumlocations like "da poi it-is-true-in-some-world fa
le duu kea broda" (instead of "lo kae/cia broda").

> As for the LAhE -- which I would advocate, remember, only because
> the natural solution got lost somewhere between 1988 and now
> and has apparently become unredeemable at this point

Is the "natural solution" an absence of rules, blind to the selbri,
for exporting to prenexes? I take it that instead you think that
such rules should be selbri-specific? I prefer the modern version
you decry.

> (a strong argument for carrying on the kind of conversations we have,
> that are said to never come to a conclusion -- if we had argued this a
> few years ago, we would not have ever had the gawdawful change) --
> the plea is just that, while we CAN say what we want, to do so involves
> profoundly complex locutions for saying what we have, at first glance
> (but not at about third) simple expressions for: real, possibly
> insuccessful, hunting, for example. And this is not a minor problem,
> since, if you look at the literature, it turns out that all the logical
> and semantic vocabulary ("entail," "true," etc.) and most of the
> metascientific ("cause," "explain," "predict," etc.) are of that
> intentional/intensional/propositional group that create contexts of
> the problematic sort.  So great slabs of one line of justification for
> Lojban has just gotten markedly (factor of 2+) more complex.

I think we agree that semantically, all these things involve subordinate
bridi. The issue is just whether the syntax should mirror the semantics
(i.e. that the relevant predicates have sumti that are bridi), or whether
it should provide short cuts. It is unfair to criticize syntactic
forms without short cuts (i.e. no more or less complex than the semantics)
as "profoundly complex locutions".

>         As for my special clout, sure!, again.  If I had it, we wouldn't
> be in this jam in the first place -- or would be out of it by now and
> into a very different one, the one I thought we were in originally
> (specifying external referents within opaque contexts), which we can
> deal with by careful forethought, to be sure.

If you don't get your way, it's more likely due to people not understanding
you than to them not deferring to you. (But, undeferentially I opine
that I'm glad you didn't get your way on the matter you rue so.)

Iain:
> > pc:
> > Actually, I think that virtually all opacity is bridi subordination,
> > but that some cases of subordination are encapsulated in lexical
> > items, so that -- to take an English example which is relatively
> > safe  -- "hunt" has in reality the same structure as "intends/desires
> > that ... TAKE ---", where the ... is filled by the subject of "hunt"
> > and the --- by the object, which is thus subordinated in an
> > intentional context.
> Sure, you can define lexical items that way, but I reckon what you end
> up with is no longer a predicate - it's some other kind of operator,

Whether or not you're right, it still seems to me that that is what
"hunt" means. So if {kalte} is a gismu, and it means "hunt", then it
means "x1 try for it to be the case that x1 'takes' x2".

> one whose arguments cannot be fully interpreted (as referring to
>  anything), but must be treated in some other fashion.

That doesn't follow. We seem to be agreed that x2 of kalte is quantified
in the same prenex as x1 ("Ex Ey, x try for it to be the case that x
'takes' y").

> Lojban gismu are "sold" as predicate words, and I've assumed
> that the same applies to other selbri in general.  I could
> accept other kinds of "lexical item" in the language, but I
> would much prefer them to be clearly marked as such.

I feel similarly. I would prefer that the relevant gismu be redefined
so that, e.g. {djica} *must* have an x2 referring to a bridi, and, say,
{sisku} and {kalte} are redefined as the intended result of seeking
and hunting, so that one would then say {mi troci kuau/le duu/le nu
mi sisku lo cukta} "I seek a book".

> &: Are we sure that {da tua de broda} is equivalent to {da zou da broda
> loi suu de zou de coe}, rather than to {da de zou da broda loi suu de
> coe}? The definition of {tua} implies this.
> pc:
> Implies which (pronoun reference)?

Implies that {da tua de broda} is equivalent to {da zou da broda loi suu
de zou de coe} (rather than to {da de zou da broda loi suu de coe}).

> I take it that in _tu'a de_ _de_ is evaluated in the possibly remote
> world of  _tu'a de_ not the nearer one of _da broda_. But I am not
> *sure* that it it is meant to -- any flakey thing seems possible these
> days.

I take it thus, too, and am similarly unsure. If John doesn't know the
answer, then presumably it remains to be decided.

> There may be no opaque contexts in Lojban

I hope not.

> (and consequently almost no way to talk about anything of any interest
> at all).

It's not that there's almost no way. It's just that when you want an
opaque reference there is no short cut making syntax simpler than
semantics - unless one uses your {xee} in LAhE.

> &: I think the x2 of djica should be a bridi (i.e. duu/kuau). It makes
> as much or as little sense to want an apple as it does to want an
> event. But events in lojban are something very different from events
> elsewhere.
> pc: Since I am not too clear about what your bridi are meant to be, I
> have no comment on this one.

A "proposition" - something that's true or false. (What *exactly* a
proposition is, intensionally or extensionally, I'm unsure.)

> I take it that _djica_ takes the equivalent of a _nu_ clause, whatever
> you want to call these things.

Why do you reject a _duu/kuau_ clause? Those are, I understand, things
that are or aren't the case; that are or aren't true.

> I agree that "event" is not ideal but "state-of-affairs" sounds forced
> (and misleading, since it might be a process, for example). "Situation"
> maybe? What *those* -- any of them -- are when we come down to it
> (intensional objects, functions on worlds or on the contents of worlds,
> sentences, ... -- the Handbook of Philosophical Logic, a fairly
> conservative tome,  offers, up to where I am now,  at least five
> possibilities -- ...) I have no fixed idea either for Lojban or logic
> or reality. I am getting clearer about how they work -- at least in
> logic and English and so, hopefully, in Lojban, though.

In my neck of the woods, situations comprise states, events, processes,
etc. They occupy time, and sometimes space. Storms and explosions are
situations. They contrast with states of affairs which are "the way the
world is (viewed panchronically)" - roughly speaking, I think a state
of affairs is an extensional object and a proposition a corresponding
intensional one. There is no temporal component to them.

I've hitherto thought that nu-thingies are situations, and duu-thingies
are propositions/not-necessarily-real-states-of-affairs. And everyone
has seemed to me to misuse/overuse nu, and underuse duu. Now, though,
it occurs to me that maybe nu-thingies are states of affairs - "way(s) the
panchronically viewed world is", and duu-thingies are their intensional
propositional counterparts.

I'm not trying to sell you my terminology. I'm trying to establish
whether we see the same distinctions.

> &: {lo nu la djordj ualas cu merko gugde ralju cu na fasnu} means
> {da zou da nu la djordj ualas cu merko gugde ralju kei gie da na fasnu},
> which is false, since {no da fasnu gie na fasnu}. The problem is that
> statements like {xamgu gie nu la djordj ualas cu merko gugde ralju} will
> necessarily be false, even if it would have been good if GW were
> president.
> pc: We can argue about the expansion (and about the relevance of &'s
> shift from lojbab's _le_ to _lo_

That was to avoid veridicality red herrings.

> and whether a compound bridi tail can be called a statement)

Is it not a full bridi? I meant it to be.

> but the argument does not go through however these issues are decided.
> The crux is whether _da nu la djordj ualas cu merko gugde ralju_
> entails _da fasnu_.  The argument above overtly assumes that it does.
> But, of course, this is circular, since the point of this argument is
> just to prove that non-occurring events (or whatever -- pick your
> favorite word) do not exist, the point just just assumed (well, the
> contrapositive, and so equivalent, of it).  Any good arguments for
> the point directly? There may be, but, since we have not clarified
> what _nu_ clauses refer to at all, it is probably premature to come
> up with them.

What I said was principally addressed to Lojbab who, when I was making
the point that certain things we wished to be true were coming out
necessarily false, responded (missing the point, it seemed to me) by
saying that false statements are still meaningful.

As for whether {da nu} entails {da fasnu} [assuming that states are
fasnu too], I had always assumed it did, but John tells me it doesn't.
I think I am gradually coa grocking what nu is supposed to mean, but
am not wholly sure yet. I thought {nu cinba} meant "a kiss", but I
am suspecting that it instead is more like "that there is a kiss" (so
by my original understanding {ci nu cinba} would make perfect sense as
"three kisses", but by my new understanding it would make little sense
- "3 facts that there is a kiss"????). The term "event (abstraction)"
really throws me. It would be much safer to use a lojban word.

> &
> > These problems need not arise with the artistic subject opaque
> > places, "picture of", "book about" and the like, since it is at least
> > plausible such things are always about events: Madame X standing
> > by a table, not just Madame X, for example.  The plausibility thins
> > a bit with compositions on abstract subjects, but we can probably
> > circumvent any problems that arise.  If we decide we need to.
> That seems mad to me, unless by "event" you mean "bridi/duu" (i.e.
> not about Mme X's standing but about that Mme X stands), in which
> case I see the appeal of the analysis but nonetheless don't go along
> with it. I prefer your suggestion of something in CAhA meaning "is
> in a not-necessarily-real world".
> pc:
> Trying to draw distinctions between "that" clauses and closed gerundives
> in English ("Madame X standing by the table") seems pointless to me both
> from English and logic, but if you see a difference, then go with the
> "that" clause, which is what seems to be aimed at here.  I don't see how
> the CAhA is going to fit in here, since it was (I thought) for shifting
> whole sentences not just sumti, though I guess we could modify the
> predicates in sumti with it.

That's what I meant. {pixra lo kae gerku} = "picture of a dog (opaque)"
= "there is something that is depicted and that in some world or other
is a dog". Is that adequate? (Maybe not: I think we want to say
"there is something in some world or other that in that world is a dog
and that in this world is depicted". I've no idea how to say that,
even if I could invent all the cmavo I wanted to.)

> In that case, I suppose that the special LAhE would not be needed.

But {mi kalte lo kae pavseljirna} doesn't mean "I hunt any old unicorn";
it means "I try to make it the case that I 'take' what in some world is
a unicorn". What we really want to say is "I try to make it the case
that there is something that I 'take' and that in this world is a unicorn".
To say that, we can use either {mi troci kuau mi 'take' lo (pui)
pavyseljirna} or {mi kalte xee lo (pui) pavyseljirna}.

So you still need {xee} in LAhE.

> Except for names, where CAhA would apparently not fit.

E.g.? What do you have in mind?

> &
> > NAhE is useful for shifting the whole bridi into Nephalococcygia -
> Nephelococcygia
> pc
> I meant the land of the sober cuckoos.  Sure!

I beg your pardon. [No COI to say that with.]

coo, mie And