From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Fri Feb 24 17:03:39 1995 Message-Id: <199502242203.AA02444@nfs1.digex.net> Date: Fri Feb 24 17:03:39 1995 From: Jim Carter Subject: Re: Carterian formula (was: Gricean formula?) 23 Feb 95 12:11:15 EST." <9502232349.AA23542@julia.math.ucla.edu> > = John Cowan writes > > = Jim Carter writes (quoted by Chris Bogart): > ... "x1 has a heart" and "x1 has kidneys" have > the same referent sets (neglecting partly dissected animals, etc.). But we > don't want to call them the same predicate. As you said (in file cowan.msg), predicates with duplicate referent sets are not logically inconsistent, though producing strange results in normal discourse. But for "x1 has a heart" the referent set (using unconverted place order) equals { {John's heart, John}, {Jim's heart, Jim}, ... } even if the respective hearts are not specified by words. That is, body parts are defined as "x1 is the of creature x2", in -gua!spi just as in Lojban. If you've learned your referent sets properly you know that each creature has its own body parts, excepting Siamese twins. Thus "x1 has a heart" and "x1 has a lung/kidney/whatever" do have referent sets that are completely nonoverlapping, even though the projections onto the x2 place may be equal (or nearly so, neglecting IRS agents). > The second half of this works all right for Lojban/Loglan, but the first half > applies only to Loglan and -gua!spi, since the Lojban form for "A rat!" is > not "lo ratcu"/"pa ratcu" but simply "ratcu". (In Loglan, that's an > imperative, and in -gua!spi I don't know what it is.) An isolated "-tara" in -gua!spi works the same as an isolated "ratcu" in Lojban: it's a selbri with all default arguments, and in -gua!spi calls the listener's attention to sets of objects thus related, i.e. events. Pragmatically the listener should start his search nearby or in threat exposures. With an article a projection is done onto the first place after conversion, and the listener's attention is called to the resulting objects. In -gua!spi I exploit the duality of objects and events, such that the events coming out of a bare predicate (or one with explicit arguments) can equally well be considered to be objects, the referents of an abstraction. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6221 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90024-1555 Internet: jimc@math.ucla.edu BITNET: jimc%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT UUCP:...!{ucsd,ames,ncar,gatech,purdue,rutgers,decvax,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!jimc