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--- In jboske@yahoogroups.com, "Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@...> wrote: > > On 10/5/06, John E. Clifford <clifford-j@...> wrote: > > > > I take all this as saying something like (though I'm not sure just > > what) that, from an absolute lattice, say Mr. Dog and all among it, a > > particular conversation constructs a sublattice of relevant items, > > maintaining their relative positions, but dropping intermediate nodes > > in various ways, to suit the circumstances. > > I would say "Mr. Dog and all it subsumes" rather than "Mr. Dog and > all among it". OK. although "subsume" sounds intensional to me, I don't mind it in the matalanguage to talk about the node to node relations in the lattice. We can then reserve "among" for object language talk -- even though they are the same relation. > > Thus, for example, talk > > about dog breeds would create a piece of the dog lattice in which all > > the breeds were on "the same level" regardless of how they fell out in > > the original. > > All the breeds (i.e. all the things that count as dogs in that conversation), > would be on the same level, right. That would be the only level of dogs > present in the domain of the conversation. Well, it seems to me that many conversations which were about breeds would also include talk about individuals of each breed involved: the BOB and BOX (Best of Breed, Best Opposite seX) from the last show, the ideal dog of the breed (in from some axiological world), my dog, and the like. Thus, at least two levels are often involved. > > Similarly, just talking about dogs might put all dogs > > (even various defective ones or both the part and the whole of one) on > > the same level. > > Well, it will always be the case that the talk is about dogs, if the dog > lattice is involved. In the dog lattice there is nothing but dogs. Well, yes and no. Some levels, though only dogs are there, assume an identity of their won: breeds, classes, packs and the like. Individual dogs, however, may also be on various levels, counting either way. > I suspect > that both the part and the whole of a dog could not each count as one > dog in the same context. Each could count as one dog by itself, but not > in the same context in which the other counts as one dog. (Unless > it's a very weird metalinguistic conversation such as the one we're > having now.) This crippled dog is the same as that healthy one yesterday. Aside from thre difficulties with identity, at one level we have two dogs out of one. All transformation talk has something of this sort in it, howevwer you opt to treat it. On the lattice there seem to be two nodes -- actually three. > > And this level becomes the focus of remarks, the > > other levels available as framework but not directly as topic -- or so > > only with some extra effort. > > I would say the level under consideration is the only part of the lattice > that is in the domain of discourse, I'm not sure if that is different > from saying that it is the focus of remarks. I think the idea is that other levels are more readily available than something totally off the track, even though they do not need to be present until called up. And, as I say, I think that more than one level is often required. > > > Well, I don't understand two of the distinctions here: among v > > subsumption (especially the latter) and token v type as different > > again from amongness. On the latter, I would think that the main > > place (surely not the only one) for a token to be would be among its > > type: if not there, then in what sense is it really a token of that > > type? > > The distinction would be in counting. The broda type counts as one > broda, whereas the broda token is not one broda among one broda > but one broda among many brodas. Well, unless it is a lingusitic item (and even then I have some doubts) a broda type doesn't count as a broda at all -- because it isn't one. But, yes, considered at its level it is one broda type, possibley among many such types. A token is, usually, one of several at the same level subsumed by some one type (it may be subsumed by other types that none of the others are, but that is another issue). > > They may be proper to different discourse, but that doesn't > > affect how they are in fact (metalinguistically if you will) arranged. > > And indeed it seems that token-type pairs tend to turn up a lot in > > discourse -- as does breed-dog and other such conventional > > genus-species pairs. > > Sure, but when they turn up together they do so as members of > different lattices, not of the same lattice. (Or, if they do for a while > turn up together as members of the same lattice, they do it in > metalinguistic type of discourse, such as "when you say the book > contains 1000 words, do you mean word types or word tokens?") I should have thought that it was exxential when talking about breeds and of the dogs in them that they be in the same lattice, else in what sense is an individual dog in a particular breed?