Re: [engelang] Xorban Terminology - engelang messages

From: Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com>
To: engelang@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 1, 2012 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: [engelang] Xorban Terminology

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:40 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@hidden.email> wrote:

From: Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com>

As far as "f-" and intensionality, IMO intensionality should be something defined in predicate places, not something marked on the object/sumti or binders/gadri. IMO I should be able to say "le fe lmna'a nlca'ake" = "I like to swim (intension)" and "le je tje fe lmna'a [hika] plkeka'a" = "I am [now] enjoying this swim (extensional)" without marking the object for intensionality because the predicate should be defined such as to indicate it. Same as "le ckle nlca'ake" = "I like chocolate (intensional)" vs. "le cke [hika] plkeka'a" = "I am [currently] enjoying chocolate (extensional)".

No solution to questions of intensionality is going to be perfectly tidy, but this seems more messy than usual. I don't see why nlc2 should be intensional nor why a sentence like "I like chocolate" or "I like to swim" requires it to be (I would think that both of those require event arguments, however). And similarly (to the opposite effect) for plk2. I am not quite sure what h is about -- it wasn't on the list the last time I checked, but that has been a while. & had it for "is the haeceity of", which doesn't fit here, free variable or not. But to the cases: If there are not events of swimming that I like when engaging in them -- indeed, if I have never engaged in such -- then the claim that I like swimming is just false. So, binding in applies and the whole is not intensional.

I am holding h- to be the C for several sundry experimental operators and particles I am trying to list here - http://loglang.wordpress.com/xorban/experimental/ ; "hika" I just made up noncewise to mean "now/currently". I would like to reserve "hik-" for tense markers until we get some official ones, if no one minds.

While it may be tempting to interpret "I like chocolate" as "I habitually enjoy [eating] chocolate" or some such, I don't think that's really what "I like chocolate" means; "habitually enjoy" seems to me extensional however unspecific, and "like" seems to me intensional even I am eating it right here and now.

Just what do you mean by "intensional" and "extensional"? Whether or not it means "habitually enjoy", "like" is not obviously intensional in "I like chocolate" -- what other worlds are involved? (other than past and future ones, which are generally not other worlds for these kinds of questions).

I am calling the x2 of "nlc-" intensional because the meaning of "nlc-" does not entail that (or at least could plausibly be defined such that it doesn't entail ) x2 actually exists in the same world in which the liking occurs. (Consider that my definition of an "intensional argument place"). The fact that chocolate exists is circumstantial to being in a "nlc-" relationship with it; it's not difficult to come across examples non-existent nlc-x2s e.g. "la nnla le qsantaklausqe nlcake"; "la nxla le pvsljrne nlcake".

I am calling the x1 of "plk-" extensional because that meaning seems to indicate things that exist in the same world in which the pleasing occurs. Example: You can *like* the idea of some problem being solved, but until that idea is crystalized and made into a manifest situation, you will not be *pleased*; in fact, you will probably be the opposite of pleased. By the way, it's probably not an accident that the pleasing thing is in the x1 position in Lojban. My hunch is that most x1s will usually (always?) wind up being extensional except in a couple predicates, because my hunch is that usually the most salient argument of a predicate is going to appear in the same world as the one in which that predication is true. Putting the pleasing thing in the x1 (in contrast to nlc-x2) was possibly unconsciously motivated by that.

I do wonder whether nlc and plk are as closely related as this paragraph suggests and, if so, why we have both of them. Unless, of course, we are to get our predicates in pairs, an intensional one and an extensional one -- but, in that case, I would hope that the relation and the difference would be overtly marked.

Lojban plk- would mean "x1 is pleasant to x2", and I just tweaked it to "enjoy" in order to fit my illustration (keeping the same argument order in Xorban though). Yes, I think that the extensional and intensional versions of predicates would be separate lexical entries. That way the sentences "I saw a cat (but thought it was a rat)" and "I saw a cat (in the movie the watched)" would, or at least could, be expressed with separate predicates.

Well, if we go that way, I do hope we make the one derivative from the other so that we don't overdo the reduplication. Now, tell, which of the two seeing sentences is supposed to be extensional and which intensional. The first is clearly extensional, though "I saw a rat" in these circumstances, turns out to be intensional. The second one is arguable, though I tends to see it as extensional on the ground that 1) there is a cat that I saw and 2) that cat is the same one I saw in another movie the week before and so is identifiable as such, just like the actor who was in both.

My best guesses:

"I saw a cat (but thought it was a rat)"
... extensional because the cat exists in the same world as the one in which the seeing occurred, even if I failed at first to recognize what I saw; "it was a rat" is the intensional argument of "thought".

"I saw a cat (in the movie the watched)"
...intensional because the cat need not exist in the same world as the one in which the seeing occurred, even I recognize what it is intended to represent immediately.

Quite aside from the issues about nlc and plk , using intensional and extensional places will not solve the logical problem. The evaluation of a quantifier takes place in the world in which it is uttered, not in the world in which its value is applied. So, lo pvsljrno nlca'ako (said now by me) talks about unicorns in this world. There is nothing the matter with that, of course, this world can include unicorns -- they don't exist, of course, but that is beside the point. To consider a case where my desire might actually be fulfilled we do have to move to a world where unicorns not only are but also exist (I don't suppose that having -- or whatever it is -- a unicorn can be done with a non-existent). But that means that the quantifier has to be evaluated in that other world, and , this being a logical language, that fact has to be apparent on the sentence's face. At present there is no way to do this just using intensional predicate places, since there is no place in the desinence to introduce a new quantifier, etc. Which comes to the other reason (besides meaning) why so many tricky cases in Lojban require event descriptions or something similar: they provide a place for the quantifier: la fa le pvsljrne pnsa'ake nlca'aka.

By the way, I cannot enjoy a short proof of Fermat's Theorem, but I would enjoy one if there was one. And, in just the same way, I cannot like that proof either, theough I would, if it came along. I don't think the distinction holds in general between the various expressions in English -- and I know it doesn't in Lojban. Maybe it will in Xorban, but, if so, all the problems are left unsolved for now.
co ma'a mke

Xorban blog: Xorban.wordpress.com
My LL blog: Loglang.wordpress.com