WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


BPFK Section: gadri


> F: So sumti only apply to existing objects. When the referent does not
> exist, the bridi containing it is meaningless??

Of course not, that's not what I said. I said that lo, le and la
behave in the same way vis-a-vis fiction/non-existence. lo is
not special in this regard.

> But, of course, we often
> want sumti in intensional contexts to refer to non-existents. So, even when
> {la meripapnz prenu} is false or even meaningless, {mi nitcu la meripapnz}
> may be true (well, at least {mi nitcu tu'a la meripapnz} is and your form is
> presented as meaning the same as that — or is unexplained). As for
> quantification, I am not suggesting that {lo broda} means the same as {su'o
> broda} — indeed I have suggested a range of differences — but only that the
> inference from {lo} to the fronted {su'o} is valid unless blocked, as it is
> not in the given cases.

The inference from "I need a box" to "there is some kind of thing
such that I need it" is valid. The inference to "there is some
instance of box such that I need it" is not. It is not in general
valid to infer from the kind to the instances.

> G: Rabbit a is eating here and now, rabbit b is not here now and is not
> eating. But both rabbit a and rabbit b just ARE Mr. Rabbit, so Mr. Rabbit is
> both here now and not here now.

Mr. Rabbit is both here and other-than-here. Kinds can be in more
than one place at the same time. That's not contradictory.

> Note, {lo ractu} refers to Mr. Rabbit, not
> to some part of Mr. Rabbit; it has the same referent in all occurrences.

Right. The same happens with {la djan}. It has the same referent
when I say he is here today and he was not here yesterday. Space
acts for kinds in a similar way to the way time acts for ordinary
individuals.

mu'o mi'e xorxes





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