Re: TECH: existential quantification

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la i,n cusku di'e

> I'm assuming that we agree that opacity arises because there's
> a subordinate predication, which is elided in idiomatic English
> and a large number of other languages.

I'm not certain about this. I agree that opaque references can
usually (maybe always) be re-expressed using subordinate predications
so that all references become transparent. But I think I disagree
that using the opaque reference is necessarily elision of anything
else. Is using a specific reference elision of a predication that
specifies the referent?


> The problem is that we start with {mi djica tu'a lo plise},
> which becomes {mi djica tu'a lo nu co'e lo plise},
> ...
> which becomes {mi djica tu'a lo nu co'e lo nu co'e lo nu co'e lo plise},
> ...

I would say {mi djica tu'a lo plise} goes to {mi djica lo du'u co'e
lo plise} = "There is a predication about an apple, such that I want that".

(NOT ".. such that I want it", {le du'u...} is what the predication says,
it is not the predication itself.)

> Each time we clarify the opacity by supplying the previously
> elided predication, we find an opaque reference to an event,
> which gives us the same problem all over again.

If we clarify it with an event, I agree, but we should clarify it
with a predication.

>  But I still have
> misgivings about {lo'e} as the solution to this problem,
> at least partly because I'm not sure why it works, because I've
> no idea how I would translate it into Predicate Calculus.

How do you translate "the lion lives in Africa" into Predicate Calculus?
Unless you make "the lion" a reference to something other than particular
lions, something that represents them all and is none of them at the same
time, you can't. I think the same thing goes on with "I need a box", I
need them all and yet none of them at the same time. You can replace it
with a subpredication, but you can also make direct reference to boxes,
if not to particular boxes.

> It's a sort of magic wand that intuitively seems to give the
> right semantics.

I'm happy with that. (Unfortunately, I realize that in practice I tend
to ignore the issue and happily use lenu where I should use le'enu.)

Jorge