[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: More about questions and the like (was:What I have for dinner...")



One names-as-predicates.  It is odd semantically: names usually (certainly in 
English) don't have a sense, just a referent -- unlike predicates, which have 
both -- and the referent is an object, not a set -- as it is for predicates.  
On problem 2, using the nap approach makes all sentences about Pegasus true, 
which is as objectionable in context as the non-denoting names approach that 
makes them all false (or undefined).  Pegasus was the winged horse but 
Pegasus was not a unicorn. With the xu'a approach, this sort can take place 
without odd readings of names and as part of a general rule about intensional 
operators, which we will need anyhow.

As for problem one, if John doesn't know Paul as Paul, he probably does not 
know that he has the property is-Paul either and so not that something both 
is Paul and went to the party, i.e., that Paul went to the party on the one 
reading.  On the other hand, it probably does cover the other reading, that 
there is something which is-Paul and John knows that it went to the party.  
But this does not require the odd predicate is-Paul (rather reads it as "= 
Paul") to work.  Indeed, that is one general solution for these cases, treat 
"Paul" or whatever as an external "quantifier" to work in: in Lojban, set 
some variable to "Paul" in the prefix: "For x = Paul, John knows that x went 
to the party."  The problem is with the name inside the the intenly waysional 
context, not outside.  The trick is always to disambiguate in the less likely 
way  -- when the thing involved is real.  So the real trick is to know when 
that is.
pc