Re: [engelang] intensions & extensions (Xorban) - engelang messages

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 6:42 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@hidden.email> wrote:

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.

Would "s-" permit the same leeway, or are the contextually construed "can be included" readings peculiar to "l-"? If the former then "sa je xnra pvsljrna pxra'ika" means approximately the same thing as the "l-" version, right? If the latter, then maybe we should say that "l-" is a nonveridical operator?

> 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.

I am going to hazard that we are never going to want "le je xkre mlte vska'ake" to mean anything other than effectively

le je [ha'e] xkre [ha'e] mlte [ha'e] vska'ake.

where variable "a'e" is recycled in such a way that when it's used with "h-", it is implicitly bound to the world in which the discourse occurs. I say "effectively" because "[ha'e]" is probably not applied inside the restriction as shown, but rather first "le" binds "e" to "je xkre mlte"'s intension, which is a function from worlds to the intersections of the extensions of "xkre" & "mlte", i.e. for all worlds W, the extension "hW je xkre mlte" is defined precisely as "je hW xkre hW mlte". After that, "vska'ake" applies "[ha'e]" on "e" in order to get down to the extension of black cats in the same world in which the seeing occurs.

At any rate, permitting

le je [lW1 smW1 hW1] xkre [lW2 smW2 hW2] mlte [ha'e] vska'ake.

makes nonsense of the whole sentence, formally because there is no way to get a proper intension from "je xkre mlte"; pragmatically because Lucky the white cat might have well been black in another world, and the black one I am looking at in this world might have been orange in another.

As a side note, to be clear about the way worlds are "handed down", the exact pattern is predicate-dependent; it need not follow that of "vska'ake". For example, "li mlti pxra'iki" would probably mean effectively

li [lo smo ho] mlti [ha'e] pxra'iki

where the predicate "pxra'iki" puts its own world aside and quantifies over worlds in general to find the right cat, informally speaking. This is pretty much how intensional predicate places work.

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.

Right, please excuse the sloppiness. It doesn't make sense to apply "h-" more than once since what "h-" does is convert an intension into an extension, and that by nature can happen only once (we will never need intensions of intensions, or at least it seems very unlikely).

>> >> 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?

I guess so, but wouldn't "he dreamed that x" be enough?

>> > 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?"

Loosely:

pxra'ika'a. se prne [past] mna'ake. cu vske'e?
That depicts me. I was with some people. Do you see?

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"?

I guess the first question is, what's the definition of "vsk-"? Yes, we could easily make it mean "X sees Y or Y's likeness" if we wanted that, and create two other narrower predicates for the two subreadings. One concern in doing that is, do we really want to conflate entities and their depictions in predicate places? That effectively intensionalizes vsk-x2, which would otherwise be straightforwardly extentional. Another concern is allowing veridical claims of "seeing" all kinds of things that don't really exist, which would otherwise be marked by encapsulating them using clearly intensional predicates like "pxr-".

The way I see things going, the question is not so much should we admit intensions in predicate places, but is it even possible to keep them out. IMHO there has to be a limit drawn somewhere, lest we end up with a language in which "[ha'e] la sma pvsljrna" is true.

> 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?"