In a message dated 2/11/2002 6:45:01 PM Central Standard Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:> These all have the same truth values, but are otherwise only incidentally Well, it is clear that {jenai} is, as it were, *defined* as {je naku}, while {ju} is not defined at all within the system, and, if it were, would be define by simply leaving out what followed: p iju q <=> p. XORs various forms are truth functional only, in this sense. <. In one case, you have a differnt >thing >satisfying the sense of what is said, in the other you have a different >sense >altogether. Yes, I agree that there are differences, although I'm not too clear on what exactly they are or what follows from them.> Given that a tautology is a proposition that is always true, qkau, since it changes the proposition, is not a tautology. Note: this goes back to an earlier position of mine and so may no longer be the main thrust of my complaint. <>It is when you say things like the above that I feel justified >in thinking that you still are drawn to the notion that the answer to a >question is just what fills the gap, rather than the whole sentence that >answers it. I was never drawn to that notion, so I will protest the "still".> So you have been saying for several years, but each time in answer to my comments about something you say that makes sense (if at all) only in connection with the view that answers are what fill the gaps-- the instant case being an example. <>Put another way, {ta} is not {le ladru}, though it may happen to refer to >le >ladru, to a particular bit of milk. But {ta se jdima makau} really is {ta >se >jdima - 50 cents} or whatever the case may be -- even if you don't know >what >proposition you are committing to, but you do know it is true. I don't understand why {ta} is not {le ladru}. Isn't {ta du le ladru} true? Of course the word "ta" is not the milk it refers to, but then neither are the words "ta se jdima makau" the proposition they refer to.> Partly, {ta} is not {la ladru} because it is clearly another word; you have made a use-mention error here. {ta} refers to la ladru or to the same thing {la ladru} does, and so {ta du la ladru} is true, but {zo ta du li la ladru li'u} is not. Also, of course, {ta se jdima makau} doesn't refer to a proposition but to either a state of affairs or a truth value. But that is all technical argle-bargle: the main point is that, although the reference of {ta} may change in {mi vecnu ta}, say, (and of {mi}, too, for that matter), the proposition remains the same (roughly "the speaker purchases the near object to which attention is directed") , while with {makau} in {ta se jdima makau} the whole proposition changes with what fits the {makau}, one time fifty cents, another time a dollar and so on. {makau} is not a referring _expression_, and what replaces it is a specific (in your intended meaning), not a mere indexical, whose referent can shift with context. |