[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 8:04 AM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@hidden.email> > wrote: >> >> On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 11:50 PM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote: >> > On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 10:36 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@hidden.email> >> > wrote: >> >> >> >> I wouldn't make that distinction with the grammar. I would say (when >> >> the clarification is needed): >> >> >> >> la je xnra pvsljrna pxra'ika >> >> A/ imaginary(A) & unicorn(A): picture(it, A) > > I see two distinct ways this could work. One way is [by defining predicates > such that], within a given world, imaginary things are included in the > extensions of physical things. That's basically my view, yes, if you replace "are included" by "can be included". In some contexts they will be included, in others they won't. > If so, then "sa je xnra pvsljrna pxra'ika" > would be every bit as true as the "la" version. However, if we insist that > "pvsljrna" is true only of non-imaginary unicorns, then the other > alternative is that the formula "je R1 R2" really means > > je lW1 smW1 hW1 R1 lW2 smW2 hW2 R2" > > where "hW F" would be an operation indicating the worlds W in which F is > true. This would allow "a" to be bound to entities such that "xnra" is true > in some worlds and "pvsljrna" is true is others. Did you have either of > these alternatives in mind? I don't see any reason "je R1 R2" couldn't mean that, in the sense of being compatible with that, not in the sense of necessitating that. Presumably you don't want to say that what "R" really means is always "lW1 smW1 hW1 R", because that would send us into an infinite regress. >> >> la je ftca fa spjo'e pxra'ika >> >> A/ factual(A) & explosion(A): picture(it, A) > > As a side note, I assume that "factual" would deictically mean something > like "A is factual in the world in which the discourse takes place." I > think we will need this meaning one way or another. The discourse or the situation being described? Couldn't you use it to say "he dreamed that x was factual" without implying that x is factual? >> > Wow. Why not "le je pxre mlte vska'ake" too? >> >> If you mean "le je pxro'eke mlte vska'ake", yes, I don't have a >> problem with it, although you are not saying whether you are seeing it >> in the picture or outside of the picture. Otherwise I don't see it as >> a similar case. > > Hmm, that means "the cat of which something is a picture I see" = "I see > the depicted cat". First of all, this seems to straightforwardly entail > both "le pxro'eke vska'ake" = "I see the thing in the picture" and "le mlte > vska'ake" = "I see the cat", which seems to me to mean that I see an actual > cat, not the drawing of one. How would you say "that's me in the picture, among all those people, can you see me?" Do you really want to have to say "that's a picture of me, among all those pictures of people, do you see the picture of me"? > Moreover I don't think we need that sentence > to have both the readings that you want it to have, because we can always > say "le li mlti pxreki vska'ake" to get one reading, but making "le je > pxro'eke mlte vska'ake" ambiguous seems to make it unduly hard to express > unambiguously the simple notion "I see the cat in the picture, only outside > the picture." I think we should be able to say "there's a cat hidden in that picture, can you find it?" ma'a xrxe