From jcowan@reutershealth.com Mon Dec 13 07:15:35 1999 X-Digest-Num: 310 Message-ID: <44114.310.1706.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 10:15:35 -0500 From: John Cowan Subject: Re: More about questions and the like (was:What I have for dinner...") Pycyn@aol.com wrote: > One names-as-predicates. It is odd semantically: names usually (certainly in > English) don't have a sense, just a referent Everybody says this since Frege, including And, but I still think that the sense of "Fido" is "dog". > With the xu'a approach, this sort can take place > without odd readings of names and as part of a general rule about intensional > operators, which we will need anyhow. I don't think this works in general. Consider the following statements: The _Arabian Nights_ was translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton. Scheherezade told a story about a genie and a fisherman. The genie threatened to kill the fisherman. If the first sentence is true in the real world (it is), and the second sentence demands xu'a, what does the third sentence demand? xu'axu'a? No one simple trick will work for all cases. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)