Re: general response on needing books

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

And:
> What do they mean, under your proposal?

{paxe'e lo cukta}  Any one book. Examining whether a relationship holds
for individual cukta does not help to decide whether the relationship
holds for {paxe'e cukta}.

{paxe'e le cukta} The same, but any of "the books", rather than any book
whatsoever.

> I was suggesting a cmavo that marks whether quantification/reference
> assignmetn takes place inside or outside the local abstracction.

That's not my xe'e then. I was confused.


> > I agree that {nitcu} is like {djica}, so if one is illicit sumti raising,
> > the other is as well. I don't think either of them should be.
>
> I think they should both be. Needing and wanting both involve a
> comparison of the existence/nonexistence of a state of affairs.
> For you to persuade me that there isn't illicit raising you need
> to givve me a definition of 'needing' & 'wanting' to back up
> your view.

ca'e ko'a nitcu ko'e
     ijo tu'e ko'a claxu ko'e
              i le nu go'i cu to'e mansa ko'a tu'u

ni'o
ca'e ko'a djica ko'e
     ijo tu'e ko'a claxu ko'e
              i ko'a gleki le nu la'e di'u cu sisti tu'u


Maybe my definitions are not very good, but they mainly say that {nitcu}
and {djica} are forms of {claxu} with more properties for x1.
Does {claxu} suffer from illicit raising as well?


> > I disagree. {mi nitcu le vi cukta} = "I need this book" is as precise
> > as {mi nelci le vi cukta} = "I like this book".
>
> No. For 'like' we could paraphrase 'contemplate with pleasure' (roughly),
> & one can contemplate an object as well as a book. But a needee can
> only be an event.

If 'like' is 'contemplate with pleasure', then 'want' is 'contemplate with
desire' and 'need' is 'contemplate with hunger'.

> > The fact that "I need a book" usually has the opaque meaning is no reason
> > to prohibit {mi nitcu lo cukta} in its transparent meaning.
>
> Right, but it should be abjured as sumti raising, & as gobbledygook.

I agree that if {djica}, {sisku}, etc have been so treated, so should
{nitcu}. Unfortunately, we lose the capability to say simple things
like "I'm looking for my umbrella".

> > I think you can't have specific/opaque.)
>
> To evaluate the truth of "Lo cukta cu blanu" you examine every book,
> and only if every book turns out not to be blue is the statement
> false.

Yes. I wish lojbab would agree that to evaluate the truth of
"lo cukta cu se nitcu" (ignoring raising for the moment) one should
follow exactly the same procedure.

> To evaluate the truth of "Le cukta cu blanu" you identify
> the referent of "le cukta" and then check whether it's blue.

Exactly.

> "There is a certain book that I need to have": to evaluate the
> truth of this you identify the referent of "a certain book"
> (le cukta) & check whether I need to have it.

That "a certain book" sounds non-specific to me. How come this
doesn't work with "that book" or "the book" or "my book"? I think
that we are confusing the specificity of the reference ("le cukta"
is a specific reference) with that of the referent (very likely
that I'm using the wrong words). In "a certain book", the referent
is specific, but the reference is non-specific.

I really don't see any significant difference between "there is a
certain book that I need to have" and "there is some book that I
need to have".

> "I need there to be a certain book that I have": to evaluate the
> truth of this you don't have to identify the referent of "a certain
> book", but if you wanted to test whether my need had been satisfied
> you would have to identify the referent of "a certain book".

The satisfaction of the need is irrelevant to the claim anyway.

> This latter case is what I meant by 'specific & opaque': i.e. the
> specific referent is established only within the local predication.

Could you give an example with a clearly specific reference "the book",
"this book", "my book", or something like that? Your example seems
non-specific to me.

> I'd be happy to use a term other than 'opaque' if you feel that
> I'm misusing it.

I could well have misunderstood the Quine passage, but according
to what I understand, all your examples are transparent.


> Finally, I reiterate my cmavo proposals:
>  "xihi" - modifies LO/LE & indicates for LO that quantification
>           takes place in local abstraction & for LE that reference
>           is assigned in local abstraction. I assume that in the
>           absence of "xihi" quantification/ref.assignment takes
>           place at sentence level.

You mean that for {lo} the xihi-less quantification would be outside
the abstraction? I think that goes against current usage.

And what would local quantification for {le} mean?
{mi nitcu le nu mi ponse le vi cukta} is "I need to have this book".
What would {mi nitcu le nu mi ponse xi'i le vi cukta} mean?

>  "xuhu" - "xuhu PA X cu blanu" indicates that PA things selected randomly
>           from the set containing only every X are blue, but no claim
>           is made about whether any additional X is blue.

This is one of the many meanings of "any". Do you think it is the most
useful? I think that if you change it to "only PA things" then you can
recover your meaning with {xu'u su'oPA}, and it would be close to what
I meant by {xe'e} (I think).

Jorge