[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
On 10/6/06, John E. Clifford <clifford-j@hidden.email> wrote:
You can, if you want say that there is nothing but dogs in a dog breed, but that does not make the breed a dog or even dog. When it is counted as one it has moved to another lattice or some such transformation.
I would say that the Golden Retriever is a dog. Wouldn't you? If there is a context in which the Golden Retriever counts as one dog, then as far as I'm concerned that's all that is required for the Golden Retriever to be one node of the metalinguistic dog lattice. If you don't accept that there can be a context where the Golden Retriever can count as one dog, then our understanding of what can count as one dog is simply too incompatible to have a meaningful discussion, and perhaps we should instead discuss some other example where we do have an agreement. Would you agree that the Union Jack can count as one flag in some context, and that in some other context there might be many Union Jacks such that each counts as one flag? Or would you agree that "my going to the market" can count as one event in some context (maybe it's my favourite activity) and that in some other context there may be many different "my going to the market"'s (maybe a different one happened each day this week), such that each counts as one event? Consider the relationship between the one dog that is the Golden Retriever in one context and the many dogs that are Golden Retrievers in some other context, the relationship between the one flag that is the Union Jack in one context and the many flags that are Union Jacks in some other context, the relationship between tha one event that is my going to the market in one context, and the many events that are my goings to the market in some other context. Do you see a commonality in those relationships? That metalinguistic relationship (metalinguistic because it is a relationship between things that count as one dog/flag/event in different context, not in the same context) is the relationship I would like to call "subsume" but the label is not very relevant. It is not McKays "among" relationship, because it holds between each of the lower things (whichis one broda in some context) and one upper thing (which is one broda in some other context), not betweeen each of many things and the many things together, which are all brodas in the same context, as "among" does. mu'o mi'e xorxes