Re: Logical Vulcan take II (and other assorted sundries) Saul Epstein Sat, 10 Jan 1998 11:08:45 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Friday, January 9, 1998 5:22 PM > At 02:49 PM 1/9/98 -0600, Saul wrote: > >From: Rob Zook > >Date: Friday, January 09, 1998 12:13 PM > > > > >>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? > > It just makes sense to me to consider the variables as an extended use > of a consonent naming system, and that leaves us lacking a corresponding > system for vowels. OK. But the only real reason that consonants have "names" is that you really can't pronounce a stop without a vowel before it or after it. Whereas with vowels you can. So while P in isolution could be spoken [puu] or [pii] or [p^] -- or [^p] -- U in isolation can be spoken [u]. And therefore I don't know that we need different names for the vowels. > >>>>The -cee suffix I created to act as a categorical non-logical > >>>>connective. It roughly means, "is a member of a catagory/class". > ... > >>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. > > Well, as I was reviewing my knowledge of logic to present this section, > it suddenly occured to me that it would be convenient to interprate > the phrase, niSpock Kirka as negating the relavence of Spock and > affirming the relavence of Kirk to whatever sentance you plug that > phrase into. > > It does not change the meaning much, and it illuminates a range of > functions of the -a, without changing the meaning of the ni-. That in > turn led to my wanting the catagorical logic affermations to resemble > the -a morphologically. Now some uses of the word "all" in conjunction > with some catagorical word seem like you mean to refer to all the > members in the set of things described by that catagory. But the > universal affrimation has a different focus and emphisis. I'll have to take your word for it. > >>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? > > Just to your later suggestion we need to add a set particle to the word > whl'q'n. The "all" makes sense as an English gloss to the universal > affirmation operator, but the -dii does not correspond to all uses > of the word "all". Oh, I know. I'm just using it because it's easier to type than UNIVERSAL. > >>>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 indicate "the set of?" So, > > I did not read that very well the first time. The universal affirmation > has nothing to do with a set, except that the word associated with > it is almost always some catagory. Like All dogs go to heaven, or > All Vulcans have green blood. Now that I think of it, I probably should > have said > > whl'q'nedii'at krupat'oram plak > whl'q'n-e-dii-'at krupat'oram plak > vulcan-[plural]-[unv. affirm] blue-green blood. I guess I should ask you to explain to me the difference between universal affirmation and set reference. > >>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')." > > Well, that's qualification, not classification. I see those as two > distinctly different mental events. In qualification you associate > some quality with a class. In classification, you assert some actual > entity is a member of a class. I guess. How do you associate some quality with an actual entity, then? > Quite honestly, I would like to > see a non-logical connective (I'll explain the non-logical part > later so don't ask ;-) for each of those functions we all lump together > with the coupula "is". At least in formal mode. That makes sense. > >>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. > > Ahh, therein lies our confusion I think. I don't believe you've > mentioned this before, but even if you have I did not notice it. So, I > was not making that particular assumption. I haven't mentioned it, that's true. It is, however, the way "entity words" are used in the source documents. > I was regarding all such > words as class words, or qualifier words. When there's a chain of them, they act as qualifiers of the last word in the chain which, though merely a name like all other words, can be meant to name an actual, real, existent entity, _das_ding_an_sich_ ("the thing itself"). > So I was > indeed thinking of more than one interrogative particle. I thought > we can simply use "qa" as "Is is true that?" in front of a phrase(s) > or sentance, as we have already seen it. But also have a particle for: > > "When (Temporal tense/aspect)?" > "Where (Spatial 'tense')?" > "How (what method should I us)?" > "Why (What reasoning suppports that view)?" > "What word would fit here?" > > and so on. I cannot think of all of them right this moment, but > you should get the idea. Yes. These would be necessary anyway. Basically, we need the indicative or demonstrative correspondents of these. Then for when, there for where, therefore for wherefore (why), and that for what. We have he/she, whose interrogative is who. Then we just need a way to mark the indicative forms as interrogatives. The particle is a sentence-level marker, while these would be word-level. > When I posted my piece on logical connectives, I finished by saying I > would post more on prepositional connectives. You replied you wondered > what I meant by "prepositional connectives". I could not think of > a good way of describing them at the time, other than they would > seperate prepositions. I've forgotten. Do you mean "propositions" and "propositional?" Because if so I think I know what you mean. > Now, I've kind of back tracked and reorganized my thoughts on the > matter. I've dropped the idea of a seperate set of connectives for > sentances, which was part of the nebulous thought behind "prepositional > connective". The rest of it, which I'd still like to see, regards > non-logical connectives. Non-logical because, via symbolic logic I > was regarding logical connectives as exclusively: ni-, -a, -aj, -ong, > -ek, and -^m. > > So naturally anything else, was non-logical :-) More specifically, I > mean connectives regarding things like sets, intervals, quantities, and > related things. So, also non-logical because they have more to do with > mathematics than abstract or symbolic logic (mainly because I don't > instinctually associate mathematics with logic, even though it is a > "Logic of Numbers"). Yeah, we're going to need a different word. I know and, or, etc. are called "logical operators," but the rest of these are logical too. Overwhelmingly so. So to call them non-logical is..,non-logical. ;-, -- from Saul Epstein liberty*uit,net www,johnco,cc,ks,us/~sepstein "Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi suraketca'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at