Re: 'any' as discursive
John E. Clifford
discursive that means "no hidden conditions apply". His example, "I will
eat any apple," however, seems to fail on both counts.
First, the sentence as he uses it is pretty clearly not a
prediction, but an offer. As such, it sets up an intentional (so also
intensional and thus opaque) context. "Any' then functions as usual as a
context-leaping universal, the whole being approximately, "for all x, if
x is an apple, then I am willing that I eat x" -- "all" in disguise
again, but outside the opaque context and binding into it, so covering
real apples only (with no guarantee that here are any, as is usual with
'any').
Using the often illuminating dialog exposition of quantifiers,
this offer would amount to the speaker saying "You get to pick the apple
but I am willing to eat whatever you pick." But I, the hearer am pretty
clearly not unrestricted in my choice of apples. In the first place, I
only get one pick (well, certainly the speaker can withdraw his offer
after some number, he is not committed to eating -- or even to being
willing to eat -- every apple there is). This is a feature of the
intentional part, though, not of the 'any.' But, further, my choice is
restricted in very inexplicit ways: I surely cannot expect him to take
the apple the queen has prepared for Snow white nor the one Eve gave
Adam nor probably even those soft brown ones in the bottom of the
barrel. "Any' is, after all, just the preferred bearer of such
conditions as "within reason" (the usual formulation of the hidden
clause). To insist that the speaker has agreed to eat a manifestly yucky
apple is on a par to denying that all wild ducks in North America fly
South for the winter because pet ducks, crippled ducks and ducks in city
parks do not. The objections may be technically correct but
conversationally irrelevant and inappropriate -- moderately good logic
but abominable language.
Veion's idea is a good one, IF he can find a case. But IMHO
'any' ain't gonna provide any.
pc>|83
i.alexand...@oasis.icl.co.uk
> Veion's idea is a good one, IF he can find a case. But IMHO
> 'any' ain't gonna provide any.
"I will eat any apple" may not be the right example, but I had this
idea as well, and I still think it's right.
The examples that come to mind are imperatives, e.g. "Pick a card,
any card" - "Let there be a card such that you choose it" -
"Make it such that there is a card which you have chosen".
These are also effectively opaque, but there doesn't seem to me
to be any universal quantification going on.
I'm not entirely sure that there is a universal quantification
in Veijo's example either. There is, I agree, such a quantification
implied by some instances of "any", but "I will eat any
apple you choose" certainly doesn't mean-to-me "For any x,
x an apple, I will eat x", which would be "I will eat
all the apples you choose". It's more like "I permit
you to choose an apple, which I will then eat" -
curmi le nu pa plise poi se cuxna do cu se citka mi
curmi le nu do cuxna gi'e mi citka vau pa plise
(This isn't quite right yet - more later.)
This doesn't tell the whole story, of course. We frequently
find hidden assumptions in everyday discourse. This says
what is permitted, but not what is forbidden.
cu'u la djer.
> 2. It is a typical apple. No outliers are under
> consideration.
This isn't so much part of the meaning of the single word
"any", as a much broader-based part of the extra-linguistic
context. You have no right to require me to perform any
particular action, such as eating a particular apple, but
we don't say this explicitly. There is in general no
economical way to make such things explicit - they have
to be left to common sense. I explicitly allow you to
choose an apple, within certain common-sense limitations,
which I then offer to eat - I may or may not be amenable
to eating more than one chosen-by-you apples, and you must
use your common sense to imagine what the limits might be
on the number as well as the quality.
This intensional (or do I mean intentional) stuff is tricky.
I'm not sure my earlier Lojban example is entirely accurate.
curmi le nu do cuxna pa plise, noi mi citka
That non-restrictive qualification feels right, although
I'm not entirely what the distinction means in Predicate
Calculus terms.
curmi le nu mi citka pa plise poi do cuxna
is wrong - it means I'll eat one of the apples you choose.
curmi le nu do cuxna pa plise poi mi citka
is better - I may eat other apples as well, but this only allows
you to choose one of them.
ca banzu
mu'o mi'e .i,n.
CJ FINE
>
> Unfortunately, I haven't seen Veijo's post yet, and my comment is really
> off-topic, but I think the distinction is interesting:
>
> mi ba citka lo plise
> I will eat an apple
>
> is always a prediction in Lojban, in the sense that it claims an event
> that will happen in the future. On the other hand,
>
> mi [ca] pu'o citka lo plise
> I'm going to eat an apple
>
> is not a prediction. It is a claim about the present, and of course
> it is infected by all sorts of intentionalities, and it may be true
> even if I never end up eating an apple. (It still refers to some apple,
> not to any arbitrary apple, though.)
VERY useful distinction. Thanks.
Colin
Jorge Llambias
> This intensional (or do I mean intentional) stuff is tricky.
I think you mean intentional. What does intensional mean? With
great intensity? :)
> I'm not sure my earlier Lojban example is entirely accurate.
>
> curmi le nu do cuxna pa plise, noi mi citka
>
> That non-restrictive qualification feels right, although
> I'm not entirely what the distinction means in Predicate
> Calculus terms.
I agree with the non-restrictive. I disagree with the other two:
> curmi le nu mi citka pa plise poi do cuxna
>
> is wrong - it means I'll eat one of the apples you choose.
It means I'm allowed to eat one of the apples you choose.
> curmi le nu do cuxna pa plise poi mi citka
>
> is better - I may eat other apples as well, but this only allows
> you to choose one of them.
That means that you are allowed to choose one of the apples that
I eat. No guarantee that I will eat any one you choose. I like
the one with {noi}.
Jorge
Jorge Llambias
I was unsubscribed to the list for a week, due to a combination of
our system manager's not-quite-competence plus Lojban list's
hypersensitivity to bounces, so I missed some posts. Could someone
who still has them mail them to me? (Everything between my last post
and pc's recent post.) Thanks a lot.
Now, back to business:
la pycy cusku di'e
> Veion suggests that 'any', when not all in disguise, is a
> discursive that means "no hidden conditions apply". His example, "I will
> eat any apple," however, seems to fail on both counts.
> First, the sentence as he uses it is pretty clearly not a
> prediction, but an offer.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen Veijo's post yet, and my comment is really
off-topic, but I think the distinction is interesting:
mi ba citka lo plise
I will eat an apple
is always a prediction in Lojban, in the sense that it claims an event
that will happen in the future. On the other hand,
mi [ca] pu'o citka lo plise
I'm going to eat an apple
is not a prediction. It is a claim about the present, and of course
it is infected by all sorts of intentionalities, and it may be true
even if I never end up eating an apple. (It still refers to some apple,
not to any arbitrary apple, though.)
la djer cusku di'e
> This makes it clear just how pleiomorphic and ambiguous this
> little word of English can be. I think if we ever get it
> working properly in lojban it will have to take many different
> forms. Just as the connective "and" did when lojbanized. I am
> still opposed to trying to capture all the English meaning and
> behavior of "any" in one word.
I agree. For example many of the meanings of "any" are already covered
by {ro}, but some are not.
> Looking at the above analysis it appears that the meaning can be
> broken down into three elements.
> 1. exactly one apple is under discussion.
This sentence is misleading, even if we are sure that the number of apples
in question is one. You certainly can't point to the apple under discussion.
> 2. It is a typical apple. No outliers are under
> consideration.
This is a matter of pragmatics, I think. In principle there should be no
such restriction, but it could be assumed from context, like the "within
reason" is understood in English. The bare claim would be the absolute one.
> 3. It is a randomly selected apple.
I wouldn't say it's randomly selected. It is never selected in fact, because
the claim doesn't apply to a selected apple, it precisely applies to an
unselected one.
> 4. (2) and (3) are connected by the logical &.
>
> So we have one typical and random apple:
> In lojban this goes:
> pa lomci je cunso plise (or possibly):
> lo paboi lomci plise ije cunso plise?
"Typical" is {fadni}, not {lomci}, but I don't think we should define "any"
like this.
> Maybe we need a word for precisely this. It could be a start on "any"
> Would it parse? Are quantifiers proliferating to excess?
{xe'e} added to selmaho PA would parse, of course, since it is not a change
to the grammar.
> XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E ...........I heard that laugh, jorge.
I wasn't laughing, it was just a cough, really.
la kolin cusku di'e
> So building on your idea, I think it is something like
> lo fadni je se cuxna be no mi be'o plise
>
> which would function OK as a dictionary definition of 'any apple' in this
> sense but is not terribly useful in everyday use. But maybe if we need to
> express th8s precisely, this is how to do it.
Well, this is still transparent. {lo fadni je se cuxna be no mi be'o plise}
is still an apple that you can point to in order to show which one it is that
makes the claim true.
la and cusku di'e
> Xehe indeed. This is pretty much my understanding of what Jorge proposed
> & I seconded, with the following differences:
> (1) "one" is only a default, and any number can be specified. (As in
> "any five books")
> (2) 'Typicality' in the sense of 'average, unexceptional' can I think
> be left to pragmatics. That is, "I am willing to eat xehe one
> apple" *should* entail that I am willing to eat a rotten apple
> shat on by a skunk, and the fact that this is not what I intend
> you to infer can be left to normal processes of communication.
I agree.
On a related topic, I'm not sure whether {lo'e} has the meaning of "average,
ordinary" or not. I think it should mean "archetypal" rather than "typical".
> (3) It is not *randomly* selected but *arbitrarily* selected.
I would even say that it is not selected at all.
Jorge
PS: Again, if someone would send me the posts I missed, I'd be grateful.