copy of waht I sent to pc tonite

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

Last month, you wrote in private email:
>The opacity problem is apparently not ready for a solution.  You say you
>don't understand "opaque places" and I surely don't understand "opaque
>sumti" (except as sumti in opaque places).  "Opaque sumti" sound
>convincingly like a JCBism, a wonderful blend of ignorance and pomposity
>and, if he really thinks that _loi_ has anything to do with the opacity
>problem, it probably is.  Or with the (purported) "any" problem, for
>that matter (just the problem that there is nothing in Lojban that
>behaves just like English "any," as ther is nothing that behaves just
>like English "each" or "every" or "all," though we can do whatever these
>did with _ro_ and occasionally _su'o_).

I don't think we require a simple expression that behaves like "any".  I
think we need to know how to express the cases that have been posed
during the debate.

I suspect based on your posts that you are using a different meaning of
opaque than is everyone else.  Not surprising, but it would explain
confusion of terminology.  Here is an exchange between Jorge (>>) and
And (>) from the first month of the "any" discussion that describes how
THEY were using the terms.  

Jorge 9/18/94
>>Do we all agree that "I need a box" can have (at least) two meanings
>>in English, which in Quine's nomenclature are:
>>
>>transparent: There exists a real, flesh and blood box (as it were), that
>>             can be seen and touched, and is needed by me. (This is not
>>             necessarily a specific box in the sense that the speaker is
>>             not identifying it in any other way than saying that it is
>>             a box, so it doesn't necessarily have to be {le tanxe}.)
>>
>>opaque: I need that there be a box such that I can have it/use it/whatever.
>>
>>The "normal" meaning in English is the opaque one for that phrase. When we
>>want to emphasize the transparent case we would say "I need certain box" or
>>something of the sort. (Which can still be the opaque case, if by "certain
>>box" all I mean is "certain kind of box".)

And replying to Jorge 9/21/94
> >A new suggested solution:  LE & LO are transparent (wide scope, with
> >quantification/reference assignment outside their clause).  But when
> >combined with a certain cmavo (e.g.  Jorge's xehe) they are opaque
> >(narrow scope, with quantification/reference assignment outside their
> >clause).  Note that under my proposal "xehe" is used in tandem with
> >LE/LO, not instead of them.
>
>"There is a certain book that I need to have": to evaluate the
>truth of this you identify the referent of "a certain book"
>(le cukta) & check whether I need to have it.
>"I need there to be a certain book that I have": to evaluate the
>truth of this you don't have to identify the referent of "a certain
>book", but if you wanted to test whether my need had been satisfied
>you would have to identify the referent of "a certain book".
>
>This latter case is what I meant by 'specific & opaque':  i.e. the
>specific referent is established only within the local predication.  I'd
>be happy to use a term other than 'opaque' if you feel that I'm misusing
>it.

Does this clarify the terminology problem, and show how Jorge got to
"opaque sumti" and And went along?  Is there better terminology that we
could be using for the distinction, which seems to be a feature of the
sumti value, and not a property of the place within the place structure
of the verb/predicate, which from earlier quotes posted from Quine and
your comments above indicate "should be" the usage.

Back to your post.
>For what it is worth, we do not look for properties, we look for things
>(I had forgotten what had happened to _sisku_ while the discussion
>focused on _kaltu_ -- or is it _kalte_?  ). The problem is that the
>things we look for (like the things we want, believe in, dream about,
>etc. etc.  -- intentions, representations, propositional attitudes
>generally and other world-creating predicates) do not need to be in the
>external world or in the place where they are in the external world, so
>we cannot quantify them, we cannot identify them, we cannot replace one
>name for them with what is in the external world another name for them.

It sounds like you are saying that when we look for a fish, we look for
"lenu da finpe" where da may be quantified locally to the abstraction,
but that we would typically shorten this via sumti raising as tu'a lo
finpe.  As the place structure stands, I suspect that we can survive the
ambivalent use of either - you can sisku da poi finpe if you are willing
to put da at the main bridi prenex level, or you can sisku lenu da zo'u
da finpe, which explicitly does NOT claim that finpe are part of the
main bridi universe of discourse.

>The references to these things with most predicates is easy to handle,
>since the predicates take officially (though people keep trying to
>change this too) nu- sumti and the referring expressions thus appear
>with _tu'a_, which also serves as a warning that it is not to be used in
>the problematic inferences.  But there are a few predicates -- in all
>the languages I know and I assumed in Lojban until told differently --
>where the nu-expression is built into the structure of the predicate and
>so the sumti appears bare, without the warning _tu'a_:  _sisku_ and
>_kalte_ are a couple of these and I forget the rest and don't have the
>list to run through.

I think there are two kinds of such animals - one of which might be what
you describe for sisku and kalte.  I think people have a problem with
building the nu expression into the predicate if it means that a "da" in
the hidden abstraction place cannot easily be exported to the prenex.

I don't know which or how many brivla would fit this category, or
whether they could be easily identified.  I do suspect/hope that they
may all be dealt with using the ambivalent reference to lo broda or lenu
da broda to fill the place.

The other kind, which is what I thought you were referring to wehen I
first read this, is the explicit sumti-raising bridi, such as
ko'a gasnu lenu ko'a zutse, where x1 is raised out of x2.

>We can get the effect back by shifting over to the longer forms "strive
>to bring about killing..." or "strive to bring about spotting..." but
>then the original gismu are pretty useless.  I don't have any
>suggestions about how to mark the sumti with the original gismu.  So, as
>I said at the beginning, probably this one is not ready for a solution
>yet.

If we know that they are a fixed and finite class, we can assign a cmavo
to act like tu'a, or change the place structure and require tu'a for the
usage.  If these kids of places are likely to pop into existence in
borrowings, or ad hoc deviations from the lujvo-making place structure
conventions, then the lattyer solution is not plausible.

Later post:
>I think JCB is screwed up in his example, _lo taksi_, but not obviously
>because he is messing with opacity.  Presumably, _lo taksi_ is in an
>opaque context and so need not refer to any taxi -- or anything at all
>-- in the real world.  In Lojban (a jump on Loglan, I think, but would
>have to check -- if there were a way to check, which there often is not
>even when you have L1 to hand, as I do), the second place of whatever
>our "wait for" is (or should be) flagged for _nu_ and so the sumti would
>be preceded by _tu'a_; I am waiting for a relevantly interesting event
>involving a taxi (it's chapter 11.2 in the old McCawley -- I have to
>remember to bring that book home when I am on this particular kick):
>presumably that a taxi (perfectly ordinary Lojban _lo <taxi>_ or _da poi
><taxi>_ but buried away in a _nu_ clause) that is unoccupied and in
>service and going my way come along. 

This seems to confirm what I said above about waiting-for/seeking
implying a "nu" clause in the place we have been labelling as "opaque".

lojbab