* Monday, 2011-09-12 at 23:22 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >
> > He also thinks we should be careful to separate generic brodas, which
> > satisfy a predicate iff brodas tend to satisfy it, from kinds which can
> > have entirely different properties (like being widespread).
>
> Would you also want to separate generic John, which satisfies a
> predicate iff his stages tend to satisfy it ( like "... smokes"), from
> the John that can have entirely different properties (like "... was
> born in London")?
>
> How is "John smokes and was born in London" different from "chihuahuas
> are fiercely loyal and may have originated in Mexico"?
>
> I don't see a good reason to accept one but not the other.
We can analyse the generic sentences like this (as in Chierchia98, p.366):
"John smokes" -> for generic relevant situations s, John smokes in s
"chihuahuas are fiercely loyal" -> for generic relevant situations s and
chihuahuas x, x is fiercely loyal in s.
(here 'situation' could mean co-ordinates with respect to possible
worlds and time)
In both cases, I think we should analyse (both in english and in lojban)
the genericity over situations as being located in the predicate.
In lojban, we could make it explicit with something like
{na'o so'e mu'ei}
(although a single cmavo for it would be better... I note that {na'oi}
appears to be free)
For John, there's nothing left to explain. For chihuahuas, we still have
the genericity over them to explain. For English, Chierchia98 talks
about "accommodation" and type-casting to get chihuahuas into the
generic quantifier. I don't see why we have to copy that.
Martin
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