Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0qoJiU-00001DC; Sat, 24 Sep 94 02:07 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3526; Sat, 24 Sep 94 02:06:18 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 3524; Sat, 24 Sep 1994 02:06:18 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5716; Sat, 24 Sep 1994 01:05:05 +0200 Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 19:06:49 EDT Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: Jorge Llambias Subject: Re: TECH: Transparence / Opaqueness X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 3873 Lines: 107 mi cusku di'e > > It doesn't work. For most predicates, the "opaque" claim is > > pretty useless. i la veion di'e spusku > I disagree. > > If we consider those types of sentences where we have had > difficulties with quantification/transparency/opaqueness, > i.e. those involving {nitcu} & Co., and sentences like > > mi pu'o catra ci le xa cinfo > I'm going to kill 3 of the 6 lions This one could possibly be opaque, because (suppose that one of the lions is named Clarence) then {mi pu'o catra la klarens} need not have a truth value, i.e. it really could be any three of the six. Using {xe'e}, that case would be {mi pu'o catra ci xe'e le xa cinfo} On the other hand, you could be making a transparent claim, about three of the lions. This is what the sentence means to me: Exactly three of the following claims are true mi pu'o catra la klarens mi pu'u catra la simbas mi pu'o catra la leos mi pu'o catra la cinf mi pu'o catra la king mi pu'o catra la ritc In the transparent case, three of those statements are true, and three are false, even though you don't give any clue as to which are true and which false. In the opaque case (which I'd like to mark with xe'e) none of the statements is true or false. (If you had used {ba} it would definitely be transparent, because the opaque makes no sense. {mi ba catra la klarens} is always either true or false. We just wait until {mi} or {la klarens} is dead, and examine what happened.) > ko dunda ci plise mi > Give me 3 apples! Imperatives by definition are neither true nor false in Lojban. That means: make {do dunda ci plise mi} true. Since the distinction between opaque and transparent rests on how the truth value of the statement is determined, no such distinction is possible for imperatives. > we ought to observe that they have one feature in common: > > the outcome of the sampling is not known at > the moment of utterance and we can draw only > a limited set of conclusions from the facts > given What sampling? There's no sampling to be done in the case of the apples. Besides, the determination of the truth value is outside of time. You are allowed to see all time to decide. > We have a kind of linguistic Schroedinger's Cat which is > simultaneously alive and dead until the outcome of the > experiment is observed - until then we have opaqueness. The truth value of an utterance of a sentence is time independent. Do you agree? And using the word 'opaque' in its general meaning, rather than the restricted technical one, only makes matters more opaque :) > The basic Lojban sentence is timeless (even with the > simple tenses pu/ca/ba), and if I say > > mi citka re le pano plise > I eat two of the ten apples > > the {re le pano plise} are in limbo until I can say > > mi ba'o citka le re le pano plise > > at which time the two are fixed, definite, transparent - > until then there is just a kind of Poisson distribution > of the possible outcome of the sampling, things are not > sharply in focus but behind an opaque window. You are talking about tenses. The opaque/transparent issue is orthogonal to that, in my opinion. > Even though I have had but a single mother, I can say > > re lo remna cu mamta mi > > given the definition of {mamta} and the nature of the > Lojban tense system. Until I'm dead, and it can be > definitely said that no second remna turned out to > mother me, this statement holds opaquely. The statement is transparent in Quine's terminology. I agree that its truth value may be hard to determine, but that is a different matter. Are you making the same transparent/opaque distinction that Quine makes e.g. between lion-hunt and man-hunt? Jorge