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--- In jboske@yahoogroups.com, "Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@...> wrote:
>
> On 9/29/06, John E. Clifford <clifford-j@...> wrote:
> >
> > Remember that one interpretation of bunch talk just is plural
> > quantification. Pluralities of different sizes are just different
> > levels in the lattice (though talk of levels and horizontal planes is
> > not officially proper -- the lattice does not offer comparisons
> > between items at the same "level" except immediate successors of the
> > same node).
>
> I can imagine a context where Dalmatians and Golden Retrievers count
> as two dogs, another context where Spot and Fido count as two dogs,
> and another context where baby Spot and grown-up Spot count as two
> dogs, but I find it difficult to imagine a context where Dalmatians
and Fido
> count as two dogs, or Spot as a dog individual and baby Spot as a
> dog stage count as two dogs.
Now that is an interesting problem. What we have at the moment is a
uniform definition for {lo broda) = a node on the lattice. Two brodas
{lo re broda} is then a node with cardinality two. I suppose this
means that the immediate descendants of this node are two things at
the next lower level. I think we can set this up so that there are no
nodes which mix levels -- indeed, that is what I envisioned until you
noted the other possibility. The only problem cases seem to be cases
of a whole dog and a dog minus one hair (or whatever), which seem to
be at different levels but together count as two dogs for most
purposes. That is, the strict hierarchy seems to break down in that
vague central area of things that are brodas personally, not merely
distributively. I suppose we can declare this area as a single
"level" and allow "mixed" nodes. But we need to retain the p[otential
separation, since there are times -- as you note -- where a dog and
the same dog minus a hair will count as two dogs. I haven't though
this out at all, but I expect there is a way to do this.
>
> > If this is to work, all levels of the
> > lattice are available all the time and are treated in the object
> > language as equals: Mr. Dog is the same sort of thing as the earless
> > dog, something that is distributively a dog.
>
> I think only one level of brodas at a time can be in the domain of
> discourse qua brodas. If we were to allow mixing levels, it would
> result in confusion. I don't think one can get away with something like
> "this page contains exactly 600 words and exactly 413 words".
> We can use "words" for word tokens in one context, and we can use
> "words" for word types in another context, but in a context in which
> both levels are relevant, it seems to me we unavoidably have to use
> two different predicates. It doesn't seem to make sense to quantify
> things from one level together with things from another level.
Well, there clearly is the distinction between levels that are dogs
distributively and those that are dogs personally. We do not have at
the moment words for the various levels, so we can't at the moment use
the type-token distinction, which is not a complete solution in any
case, given that they are merely relative terms. There are probably
-- now that I start to think about it -- other mixed levels as well:
Dalmatians and Golden Retrievers are probably at different levels as
things are set up now, but we do need a level for breeds as such in
the dog lattice -- quite independent of the sizes of the various breed
populations (and probably for show classes and the like as well). But
once we start down that road, it is hard to see how to prevent all
kinds of mixed levels. Perhaps the answer is that dog breeds, for
example, {lo se gerku} are just a different lattice from dogs and
that, although all the nodes in the breeds lattice are also nodes in
the dog lattice, they are differently connected.