Paper to consider on intensionals?

[Nick Nicholas <opoudjis@optushome.com.au>]

Our problem is: we want to use Any-x in contexts where there is no 
embedded clause in Lojban. So in "I want to see a doctor, any doctor", 
you have {lenu}, hence: {mi djica lenu su'o da poi mikce zo'u: mi viska 
da}. But when you look for something, there's no {lenu} there. Thence, 
we made the x2 of sisku be leka.

So sisku is the kind of predicate that causes us problem: it's 
intensional, but its x2 is supposed to be an entity, not a predication. 
So where's the prenex go?

http://www.tulane.edu/~forbes/pdf_files/ITV_Lims.pdf is a paper on 
such predicates in English, that I found when I googled for listings of 
intensional predicates.

The author wants to put prenexes anywhere the hell he pleases, 
including mid-sentence. He says even old man Montague ended up doing 
so. The Lojban grammar is fixed, though, so we can't do that.

So he's considering the alternative --- that underlyingly such preds do 
have clausal complements after all. Just as we have done for sisku. He 
terms this propositionalism, and dates it from Quine. He thinks 
propositionalism is crap.

He has a list of intensional transitives that maybe surprising; they 
surprised me:

prefer, require, has an urge for, longs for
look for, seek, hunt, rummage about for
sketch, caricature, picture, write about, imagine (because you can 
describe imaginary things)
hate, admire, idolize, worship (this one, I admit, I don't get)

He accepts that "want X" is propositionalistic, in that it can be 
paraphrased as "want to have X", and that's why "Walter wants a bigger 
boat tomorrow" is ambiguous: {ca le bavlamdei} can attach to the inner 
clause or the outer:

la .ualter djica lenu su'o da poi bramau bloti zo'u: .ubu ponse da ca 
le bavlamdei

la .ualter djica ledu'u su'o da poi bramau bloti zo'u: .ubu ponse da 
kei ca le bavlamdei

He contends that seeking, depiction and evaluation are not discernably 
propositional in English.

His evidence is syntactic. I don't give a turd about syntax, as you 
know. In fact, his evidence seems singularly underwhelming to me 
applied to Lojban. And even inside English. e.g. he thinks it's odd to 
say "Walter is seeking a camera by noon", meaning that when he wants it 
by as opposed to that's when he's starting the search by (so you can't 
attach a separate time to the outer bridi and the inner bridi, "seek 
*to find a camera by noon*". Eh, bullshit; that makes perfect sense to 
me.

The imagining verbs are harder to me to work out, and I agree that 
even if "I imagine X" is "I imagine X to exist, "I write about X" isn't 
necessarily "I write about X existing". He then dismisses the prospect 
of imagining {lenu xy co'e}, though I think he's over-hasty.

With evaluation, propositionalists usually claim they're extensional, 
not intensional, rather than that they're propositional. The author 
claims they're intensional, and not propositional. He claims 'fear' 
must be intensional, since fearing Clark Kent and fearing Superman are 
distinct states; he dismisses as unmotivated the counterargument that 
there is a propositional claim here as well, "Lex Luthor believes that 
he fears Superman"; but I don't see why it's unmotivated, since we're 
relying on what Lex knows about the world (and has lack of awareness of 
Supe's identity) anyway. The example that, if Allah = Jehovah, and a 
Muslim never goes into a synagogue, then there's no extension and no 
proposition, is even more bogus: If Allah = Jehovah, then the Muslim 
*is* worshipping Jehovah; she just doesn't realise it --- and realising 
it is itself a proposition that's part of the story.

And in particular, and others as fancy strikes, what do you make of it? 
And can Lojban cope with all four classes of preds talking ce'u?


--
Dr Nick Nicholas, French & Italian, Uni. Melb. 
nickn@unimelb.edu.au
http://www.opoudjis.net
"Must I, then, be the only one to be beheaded now?" "Why, did you want
everybody to be beheaded for your consolation?" Epictetus, Discourses 
1.1.