From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Tue May 08 09:19:40 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_2); 8 May 2001 16:19:39 -0000 Received: (qmail 40753 invoked from network); 8 May 2001 15:15:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 8 May 2001 15:15:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta2 with SMTP; 8 May 2001 15:15:13 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Tue, 8 May 2001 15:56:36 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 08 May 2001 16:16:59 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Tue, 08 May 2001 16:16:45 +0100 To: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] imperatives & scope (was: RE: Predicate logic and childhood.) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta John: #And Rosta scripsit: # #> d. Make a note of my telephone number. #> d'. Make a note of a telephone number of mine. #>=20 #> This means (e/e'): #>=20 #> e. For my telephone number, make it the case that you make a note of= it. #> e'. For a telephone number of mine, make it the case that you make a = note=20 #> of it. #>=20 #> It does NOT mean (f): #>=20 #> f. Make it the case that you make a note of my telephone number. #> f'. Make it the case that you make a note of a telephone number of mi= ne. #>=20 #> -- for these would be satisfied if you wrote down any old number but the= n #> took steps to make sure that the phone company assigned this number to m= e. # #And if I really were able to do that, wouldn't I indeed be making a note o= f #your telephone number? It certainly wouldn't be anyone else's telephone #number! I think you & others have missed my point. I don't mean to be debating=20 what the English sentences mean, or whether saying f/f' can safely communicate e/e'. I simply meant to prove and illustrate the point that one may legitimately wish to issue a command whose logical form is not "make this sentence true" but "make a specified part of this sentence true". And pace pc, I believe Lojban doesn't allow this. So yes, the situation you describe would count as making a note of my number, but I may want to make my mand so as to exclude this possibility. #Your distinction strikes me as over-fine. Must we really distinguish betw= een #(in a restaurant): # # g. Give me my umbrella. # g'. Give me my dinner. # #on the grounds that they mean # # h. For my umbrella, make it the case that you give it to me. # h'. Make it the case that you give me something which is to be my dinn= er. Yes we must distinguish between them, though communicating g by means of something with the form of h' would not cause communication problems. #It seems to me that the fact that my umbrella was (presumably) already min= e #when I came in, where as my dinner becomes *my* dinner only because you ma= ke #it as a result of the illocutionary force of my request, is not something #to ground this supposed difference in scope on. The scope difference is not grounded on what has and hasn't already been ma= de. The scope difference is grounded on this: we can express certain scope diff= erences with "gasnu", 'makes it the case that', according to what appears within an= d without the subclause. But imperatives, too, involve an implicit gasnu -- a= n implicit 'you make it the case that' - and while logically this leads to sc= ope differences, the fact that it cannot be made explicit means that the scope differences cannot be expressed. --And.