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On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:16 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote: > Jorge Llambías, On 16/09/2012 00:42: > > On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 7:44 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote: > >> Jorge Llambías, On 15/09/2012 20:38: > > > > What I'm saying is that if you are going to grammatically distinguish > > between same-world states of affairs and not-necessarily-same-world > > states of affairs. you might as well distinguish between same-world > > things and not-necessarily-same-world things. Why make the distinction > > for states of affairs only? > > I take it that you consider the f/h contrast to be grammatical rather than > lexical, and, say, the know/belive contrast to be lexical rather than > grammatical Yes, I'm considering any distinction made only through content words lexical, and any distinction made by other means grammatical. As we keep adding grammar particles, we are grammaticizing hitherto lexical distinctions, and my concern here is whether it's worth grammaticizing this f/h distinction. > Anyway, the answer to your question is that the distinction between > same-world things and not-necessarily-same-world things can be expressed > using the distinction same-world situations and not-necessarily-same-world > situations, there is a ready mechanism for expressing the distinction > between same-world situations and not-necessarily-same-world situations, and > there is no ready mechanism for expressing the distinction between > same-world things and not-necessarily-same-world things. Well, it seems it would be just as easy to define hV in the way dV is defined, instead of the way fV is defined. But in any case at this point your hV and Mike's hV seem to have diverged somewhat. > Also, the > same-world situations and not-necessarily-same-world situations is perhaps > especially important regarding salient semantic contrasts such as de re vs > de dicto. But isn't that more of an extensional/intensional contrast, not so much a real/imaginary contrast? As I understand it, imaginary things can be de re, and real things can be de dicto. "A photo of the winner will be hung next to the picture of Mickey Mouse", "the winner" is de dicto but real, while "Mickey Mouse" is imaginary but de re. > > Just as the tiger that she sees in the clouds exists only in her > > imagination. The difference is that in the case of "talk to" we can't > > so easily use the trick of changing the addressee into an imaginary > > state of affairs. > > Which example do you mean? I did say (unclearly) that the x2 of "talk to" > could be a "la fa la sma [future greatgrandchild of hers]a", where "talk to" > here means "X speaks and X intends that the speech be directed to Y". "talk to a situation/state of affairs" doesn't make much sense to me. ca'aka ma xrxe