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

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Pycyn@aol.com wrote:

> One names-as-predicates.  It is odd semantically: names usually (certainly in
> English) don't have a sense, just a referent

Everybody says this since Frege, including And, but I still think that
the sense of "Fido" is "dog".

> 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.

I don't think this works in general.   Consider the following statements:

	The _Arabian Nights_ was translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton.
	Scheherezade told a story about a genie and a fisherman.
	The genie threatened to kill the fisherman.

If the first sentence is true in the real world (it is), and the second
sentence demands xu'a, what does the third sentence demand? xu'axu'a?
No one simple trick will work for all cases.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
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Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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