TECH: opacity continued

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

> &: 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").
> pc: Whether we have stuck to the announced value of _ka'e_ I do not
> know, but let's assume we have.  Even then, of course, your
> reading for sumti will not help, since the referents of _lo ka'e
> broda_ are the things *in this world* which may be brodas in this
> or some other world.

This is what I feared, when I wrote:

   {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.)

It looks to me, then, as if we need something modifying quantifiers
that specifies whether it is things in this world or another one
that are being selected.

Either that, or we decide that everything in one world is also in
every other world.

Which do you prefer?

> McCawley deals rather cavalierly (but no probably correctly and
> certainly simply) with the problem of representation objects.
> Reminding us that range of variables is the universe of discourse,
> not reality, he holds that, when we are talking about art, the stock
> material of art is always in the universe of discourse and, when a
> particular work is at issue, its content is, of course, in that
> universe.  So, the art work references are not opaque -- although
> some care is probably needed to distinguish art work objects from
> the real objects they seem to represent (and, in dramatic art, from
> the real objects that present the representations).

I agree it's cavalier. The problem with what McC says is that within the
universe of discourse we distinguish between things in the (locally)
real world and things in (locally) nonreal worlds. He himself discusses
how _someone_ is ambiguous between "someone in this world" and "someone
in any world", but doesn't say how to disambiguate/deambiguify.

> But we will only be happy when we are hunting them if we find them
> in a world where they are brodas (which may not be this one), and
> there we would be just as happy if we found things which are not in
> this world at all but are brodas in that. So your form doubly misses
> the mark.

I understood us to be discussing the use of {kae} for depicted things,
not for hunted things.

Goran:
> I am happy with {ti pixra le/lo/lo/lo'e/le'e gerku}, depending on what
> you want.

That's right, but (ignoring nonveridicality) all claim or at least
imply that you could go out into the world (possibly equipped with
time machine) and find the dog that is depicted.

> Of course, you can't use lo'e on photos, just paintings.

I don't see that.

> &: 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.
> pc: Well, if we are going to claim to have all these words one of
> whose main features is the opacity of a place and which are
> unintelligible without that feature, we are stuck with something
> like this.  I would be delighted if they were distinct so that a rule
> could be written for them, since I dislike memorizing another list
> (the nu-sumti list and the ka-sumti list are problems enough)
> except that we all (should) know which the cases are already.
> Perhaps we need a small list of these critters of various sorts and
> make all the rest compounds with a distinctive ending (Sure, redo
> morphology again! but that might be better than a slough of
> useless gismu that do not mean what they seem to and cannot be
> used to get to it -- or for anything else).

You (enthusiastically) & I (grudgingly), and debatably Jorge
(aboriginally), all agree on {xee} = "quantify in some other (lower?)
prenex" (roughly). Will that not satisfy you?

> &: 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".
> pc: What is the intended result of seeking and hunting? Finding and
> TAKing, I guess.  But "find" is surely already a gismu, though I
> can't find it, and TAKE is just a disjunction of a variety of
> takings, the appropriate one of which would be substituted in each
> case.  That is, these once useful old gismu would be superfluous
> and replaced by complexes to the same effect as the gismu once
> had.  So you have not yet found a new purpose for the displaced
> forms.

There is no gismu for "find"; {facki} is the closest, but seeking is
not necessarily troci le nu facki. Under my proposal {kalte} would
mean exactly that disjunction of a variety of takings. So I have
found a new purpose for the displaced forms.

> I cannot find when the change was argued or, for that matter, when
> it was promulgated. I am less concerned about not getting my way than
> I am about not having had a say at all in such a radical change.

Are you so sure that there was such change? I suspect that the current
rules were preceded by a vacuum, not by a set of different rules that
were more palatable to you.

> & (i,n inserted):
> "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").
> pc:
> You can't have it both ways.  If x2 is subordinated to a "try" then
> it need not be evaluated in the present universe.

The quantifier of x2 is not subordinated. The sumti itself is
subordinated.

> If it is evaluated only in the present universe than _kalte_ often
> does not mean "hunt."

I agree, as I've said before. Or rather, it would be more accurate to
say that "hunt" can't always be translated by "kalte", but "kalte"
can always be translated by "hunt".

> &: 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.
> pc: I don't reject them; I just don't understand what you mean by them
> (as I said).  I am not sure what a predication is meant to be (it is
> maybe time for another jargon dictionary to get issued; I lose track
> of all the words based on _bridi_ for example, and this case
> of what I suppose is a translation of one is not at all clearer).
> _du'u_ is listed in NU but presented as a relation between a
> predication and a sentence, which does not seem to be NU syntax.

If you're not sure what "du'u" and "predication" mean, then god help
the rest of us.

> As for kuau (illegal; kua'u or ku'a'u?), it is clearly experimental
> and the only explanation I can find for it is a bare sketch (totally
> unclear) in which it is contrasted with a misinterpretation (I think)
> of another vaguely presented experimental proposal.

You must be thinking of something else. {ku'a'u <bridi> ki'a'i} is
a sumti referring to the proposition <bridi>.

>        For now, what we need to do, before it starts to matter too
> much, is agree on what constructions we have to deal with and
> what their various peculiar characteristics are and then assign
> some conventional name to them that we agree on.

Could you make some proposals? Here's a tentative list, without
Lojbanizations.

A. a proposition [which is something that's always abstract & independent
   of worlds, just as, e.g., sets are]
B. a world (panchronic)
C. a temporal slice of a world  [I don't actually see a need for this, but
   one might as well be prepared]
D. an object/entity with temporal extent or bounded in time, and possibly
   in space [= my "situation"]
E. a portion of a world [= my state-of-affairs] bounded in any way
   whatever (2 place relationship between portions and worlds)
F. a portion of a world the existence of which is sufficient to render
   a given proposition true of that world

(A) is "bridi". "nu" was, I used to think, (D), but now I think it's
(F), except that there's no overt sumti for the world; instead the
world place is always filled by a {da} rather than a reference to
the (locally) real world. [I think that that's compatible with John's
& Goran's & Jorge's views on {nu}.]

coo, mie and