Re: Logical Vulcan take II Saul Epstein Fri, 9 Jan 1998 14:49:29 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Friday, January 09, 1998 12:13 PM >At 08:50 AM 1/9/98 -0600, Saul wrote: >>From: Rob Zook >>Date: Wednesday, January 07, 1998 5:53 PM >> >>>In a complex logical argument, one could do as one does in prepositional >>>calculus, and assign a variable to a statement. So I propose using the >>>Vulcan consonants, plus uu, as basic variables: puu, tuu, buu..,etc. >> >>Might they, when writing, do as we do and use just the consonants' >>letters? So, p, t, b, etc.? But when reading something so written, or >>speaking ex tempore, pronounce any isolated consonant as itself+/uu/? > >That's what I was getting at yes. I should have been more specific. >We should also pick some consonent, or set of consonents to use >when speaking of an isolated vowel. ? Do you mean a pronouncable name pattern for vowels in general, or something to do with the variable naming system that I'm not catching? >>>The -cee suffix I created to act as a categorical non-logical >>>connective. It roughly means, "is a member of a catagory/class". >> >>So, your original syllogism translates something like: >> >> MAJOR Vulcan-UNIVERSAL blue-green blood-GEN >> MINOR Vulcan Spock-MEMBER >> CONCLUSION Spock blue-green blood-GEN >> >>Unfortunately, the construction "Vulcan blood-GEN" makes "Vulcan" a >>possession of "blood." The genitive suffix works a lot like the English >>apostraphe-S. So it should probably be attached to Vulcan in the major >>premise and to Spock in the conclusion. > >Yup. I goofed there. > >>However, this is great stuff. My only suggestion would be to make these >>connectives prefixes, to help distinguish them from syntactic markers. In >>other words, >> >> ats diiwhl'q'nat krupat'oram plak >> its whl'q'n ceespok >> aaz spokat krupat'oram plak >> >> MAJOR all-Vulcan-'s blue-green blood >> MINOR Vulcan include-Spock >> CONCLUSION Spock-'s blue-green blood > >Well, I don't have a real problem with it per say, I just did the >two affirmation particles as suffixes to make them isomorphic to >the -a particle which seems to be some kind of less formal affirmative. Oh. I've been interpreting -a narrowly as a sort of "plus" sign, whereas these seem like set indicators. >Also, the way you used include- here more closely matches what I >mean than using a set operator on the word Vulcan here. Huh. I'm glad I got closer to what you mean, but I'm not sure I know what you mean. Are you referring to my suggestion later that we mark "Vulcan" with "all" in situations like this? >>I'm a little confused by your use of singular entities in these examples. >> seems tied a little too closely in form to "Spock is a >>Vulcan." Could we use your universal affirmation marker to indicate "the set >>of?" So, > >Well, as I said above this -cee means "in the category of or class of", >associating some actual entity with some abstract category, like "Spock >is a Vulcan". A set connective would have a different meaning. "Spock is >a Vulcan" was just shorter English gloss of this. Since, Vulcan has a dD >rule, then as I used it above Vulcan modifies the expression Spock is a >member of a category, and thus the d must be a category. OK. If "Vulcan" modifies "Spock" here, then you don't need to mark Spock. The dD rule implies it. "Tall woman," in a sentence by itself is like English "woman is tall (or is member of set 'tall people')." >Do you think it necessary to qualify an abstract category word as a set? >That seems kind of redundant. Keep in mind that a word like Vulcan is >already an abstract category, just like stone, or Human, or tree. True, but so far we have been operating on the assumption that single entities in Vulcan work as they do in many languages lacking an article system (English "a/n" and "the"). That is, roughly, means "a Vulcan" when first used in a statement or exchange of statements, and "the Vulcan (the same one)" thereafter. So far, the only way to refer to the set 'Vulcan,' has been in the plural: , "Vulcans." Which just means that looks on the surface, to me, like Spock is a member not of the set containing Vulcans but of the set which is some particular Vulcan -- as would be the case with an organ or a cell. One way around this would be to make deixis obligatory, so that any time one referred to one Vulcan, even a hypothetical one, she must say "this" or "that," etc. Then the "bare" word would be understood as a set. Or we could come up with a word meaning "entity" -- say, -- and when wanting to refer to an instance of an abstraction always say something like qomi ceefig brax prapela. "Terran(humanoid) instance-thing quickly spoke." > Which >reminds me, it's a little out of place here, but I suspect that when >Vulcans would refer to a non-proper named instance of a category, like a >specific stone, they would use a subscript particle. Which I kind of >intended to deal with, when we got into Vulcan Mathematics, but this >would be another good use for such a particle. > >So a Vulcan might say, "See how this (Stone-1) differs from that >(Stone-2)" and thereafter simply refer to them as stone-1 and stone-2 >with the demonstrative prefix implied. Oh. That would also solve the above problem, if the subscripts were obligatory, even when discussing one instance. This is, in fact, the origin of the English indefinite article "a/n." (From Old English "one," which could be spelled or .) >>Now I have a bit of a question. How would this >>apply in a conversational situation, something like... >> >>Speaker A: ats ci diiwhl'q'nat krupat'oram plak ic. its qa ci diiwhl'q'n >> ceespok ic? > >I cannot think in Vulcan so I'll translate as you did. > >Speaker A: [major premise] ( All Vulcan's have green blood) > [minor premise] Is it true that? (Spock is a Vulcan) > >>Speaker B: itsa. > >Now affirming an interrogative statement does not make sense to me. I >would say that Speaker B would agree with , "yes/true". This, again, relates to my interpretation of -a as a "plus" sign, and an affix version of . My Speaker B was saying, in short, "Your minor premise is true." I'm not happy with the word order of Speaker A's question, but everything else I tried seemed more wrong. I think the question _I_ was asking might have been clearer with variables -- though maybe not -- but the syllogism structure was nearer the surface of my brain... >This also, brings up another thing that kind of bugs me. In English, >one can ask about 10 or so categories of questions, why generalize one >particle to refer to them all? Why not have a particle to represent all >of them? Don't have the faintest glimmerings of a clue as to what you mean. Is that "all" in the last sentence supposed to be "each?" And if so, are you suggesting that Vulcan should have more than one interrogative particle? >>Speaker A: aaz ci spokat krupat'oram plak ic. > >Speaker A: Therefore, (Spock's blood is green). > >You know, the parenthesis seem superfluous. ats, its and aaz I intended >as free particles, and when speaking and writing everything between ats >and its will naturally be the major premise, everything between its and >aaz the minor, and everything after aaz (to the end of the sentence) >would be the conclusion. Yeah, I was just being super-formal. >So I suppose that a variable being a free particle also, parenthesis >would not be needed with them either, unless you had a more complex >argument and you needed to define a specific order of evaluation. Right. >As an afterthought, I think that putting ^- before each premises in a >non-syllogism, instead of separating the premises, makes everything more >self-consistant. It certainly looks better as written, to me. >BTW, A non-logical connective was what I meant when I said prepositional >connective. I was going to post about some of them next. I have come up >with a list, but I think I'm leaving out some possibilities. Did you say prepositional connective? I missed it. And, um, if cee- isn't logical, what is it? Maybe go ahead and show us the list, so I can try to form a better picture of the distinctions you're making... -- from Saul Epstein http://www,johnco,cc,ks,us/~sepstein "Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at