Proposition (Part 5 Re: New project) Saul Epstein Thu, 25 Mar 1999 15:01:30 -0600 0273 - A Proposal Regarding Logical Connectives in Vulcan I Rob Zook Wed, 10 Dec 1997 18:17:43 -0600 Hi all, I've been trying to figure out how to flesh out the selection of logical operators in Vulcan and think I have come up with something useful. I figure out what was lacking by thinking about how to express all possible two operand truth tables. While working out the range of possible truth tables I found sixteen total. But six of them have no relevance yet, since they represent the most basic forms of syllogistic arguments. Two represent tautological arguments, and contradictory arguments: Tautology Contradiction ----------- --------------- TT=T TT=F TF=T TT=F FT=T TT=F FF=T TT=F The next two can be represented in English by the phrases, "X whether or not Y", and "whether or not X, Y". The truth tables look like this: X whether or not Y whether or not X, Y ------------------ --------------------- TT=T TT=T TF=T TF=F FT=F FT=T FF=F FF=F The first one represents arguments called "affirming the antecedent", and the second represents arguments called Modus Ponens. Two other tables represent the negation of the above two: !(X whether or not Y) !(whether or not X, Y) ----------------------- ------------------------- TT=F TT=F TF=F TF=T FT=T FT=F FF=T FF=T Arguments of the forms Modus Tollens, and "denying the antecedent". The remaining ten all involve the logical operators of symbolic logic. Prepositional calculus has five main operations: !X, X OR Y, X AND Y, X --> Y, X <--> Y (negation, disjunction, conjunction, material implication, and material equivalence, respectively). We lack a couple of those operators and I would like to propose a couple of Vulcan particles for them: /ek/, and /^m/, for the implication and equivalence operators respectively. Working out the possibilities came much more easily with truth tables than with English statements, and I don't know if one can express some of the following truth tables in English. However, given the acceptance of my proposed terms, and the ones we know, I have some speculations on the possibilities: X'aj Y'aj X'ong Y'ong X'ek Y'ek X'^m Y'^m ----------- ------------- ----------- ----------- TT=T TT=T TT=T TT=T TF=T TT=F TF=F TF=F FT=T TT=F FT=T FT=F FF=F TT=F FF=T FF=T We have already discussed phrases of the form X'aj Y'aj and X'ong Y'ong: qa kya'aj qa nikya'aj, and Spockong Kirkong. A phrase of the form X'ek Y'ek would resemble an English phrase like "X only if Y". A phrase of the form X'^m Y'^m would appear in English like "X if and only if Y". Naturally, adding ni to both particles would negate the entire expression: X'niaj Y'niaj X'niong Y'niong X'niek Y'niek X'ni^m Y'ni^m --------------- ----------------- --------------- -------------- TT=F TT=F TT=F TT=F TF=F TT=T TF=T TF=T FT=F TT=T FT=F FT=T FF=T TT=T FF=F FF=F Some more interesting possibilities can be drawn up, when you only negate one of the inputs to the operator: niX'aj Y'aj X'aj niY'aj niX'ong Y'ong X'ong niY'ong ------------- ------------- --------------- --------------- TT=T TT=T TT=F TT=F TF=F TF=T TF=F TF=T FT=T FT=F FT=T FT=F FF=T FF=T FF=F FF=F From the above table I would say we should probably not consider niX'aj Y'aj and X'ong niY'ong valid usages since they duplicate more simply expressed logic: X'ek Y'ek and X'niek Y'niek, respectively. Interestingly enough, only X'niek Y'niek expresses a unique negative expression with /ek/ and not one like niX'ek Y'ek. Since the latter has the same truth table as X'niong Y'niong. The same is true whether or not you negate one of the inputs to the operator or both, the result will duplicate one of the a fore mentioned truth tables. Even more interesting things happen if you try and negate an /^m/ expression. The truth tables of X'ni^m Y'ni^m, niX'^m Y'^m, and X'^m niY'^m work out exactly the same. So it makes sense to only allow X'ni^m Y'ni^m as valid logic and grammar. I was originally looking at Lojban for a model with these, but given how much Lojban grammar differs from Vulcan, I had to go out to the web in search of information on symbolic logic. Luckily I found a great site if any of you want to brush up on your logic. The University of Newberry in the Caribbean has a completely on-line course, roughly equivalent to a normal College level "Intro to Logic" class. Very complete (much more so than the sorry excuse I got at a community college). You can find it at: http://www,newberry,edu/acad/phil/p110/index,htm Next post I'll talk about a proposal concerning prepositional connectives. Later on I intend to make some more proposals regarding mathematical particles, and a more elaborate and precise tense-aspect system. ---------- 0274 - Re: A Proposal Regarding Logical Connectives in Vulcan I Saul Epstein Thu, 11 Dec 1997 21:02:24 -0600 An excellent and overwhelming treatment which, as far as I can tell, respects everything we already know. I have anly one question (at least for now). You describe the relationship of material implication as similar to that expressed by English "X only if Y" and material equivalence as similar to "X if and only if Y." From the truth tables, implication seems to mean that the first term's truth varies somewhat indepently of the second's. That is, X --> Y is true if Y is true or if both are false, and false otherwise. Equivalence seems to mean that the two terms' truth is entirely dependent. That is, X <--> Y is true if both terms are true or both terms are false, and false otherwise. If I have this right, did you mean to say that implication is similar to "X if Y" while equivalence is similar to "X if and only if Y?" Because I don't see the difference between "only if" and "if and only if." Just curious. From: Rob Zook Date: Wednesday, December 10, 1997 6:17 PM > Next post I'll talk about a proposal concerning prepositional > connectives. I look forward to hearing what you mean by prepositional connectives. The kinds of things typically called prepositions in English would seem to have a reduced role in Vulcan because of its inflected cases. ---------- 0276 - Re: A Proposal Regarding Logical Connectives in Vulcan I Rob Zook Fri, 12 Dec 1997 00:20:32 -0600 At 09:02 PM 12/11/97 -0600, Saul wrote: >If I have this right, did you mean to say that implication is similar >to "X if Y" while equivalence is similar to "X if and only if Y?" >Because I don't see the difference between "only if" and "if and only >if." Just curious. I believe you have it aright. I did have trouble coming up with a good phrase for material implication. "X if Y" and "X if and only if Y" seem exactly right. >From: Rob Zook > >> Next post I'll talk about a proposal concerning prepositional >> connectives. > >I look forward to hearing what you mean by prepositional connectives. >The kinds of things typically called prepositions in English would >seem to have a reduced role in Vulcan because of its inflected cases. Hmm.,again I think you've caught me in an error. Perhaps, I should describe what I mean as statement/sentance connectives. ---------- 0306 - Logical Vulcan take II Rob Zook Wed, 07 Jan 1998 17:34:40 -0600 Hi all, I've been thinking about what Saul said when I talked about having separate logical connectives for sentences. After trying to work it out, I'm going to back off from that idea. I was thinking it might make it easier to express complex logic, but I have come on a better method. 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. So in a complex statement one would assign each statement to a variable and then demonstrate the relationship as a variable. So in Formal Vulcan one probably should demonstrate a proper logical form, or it's not acceptable grammar. To elucidate this with an example, I had to come up with a few more grammar words. So let's back up a second, and see how we could do simple categorical logic with Vulcan: All Vulcans have green blood Spock is a Vulcan Therefore, Spock has Green blood ats whl'q'n,dii krupat'oram plak'at its whl'q'n spok,cee aaz spok krupat'oram plak'at ats, its, and aaz act as "syllogistic operators", if you will. Identifying the major premise, minor premise, and conclusion of a syllogism. In formal Vulcan, one should probably not consider a syllogism grammatically correct, unless it has a valid form. For those of you not familiar with syllogisms, I'll review a bit. A syllogism has three terms each used exactly twice. The minor term is the subject of the conclusion. The major term serves as the predicate of the conclusion. The remaining term is called the middle term. The major premise links the middle and the major term. The minor premise naturally links the middle term and the minor term. The conclusion, of course, links the major and minor terms. So, in the above argument, the major term is "green blood", the minor term is Spock, and the middle term is Vulcan. I created the suffix -dii to indicate "universal affirmation", and the -vu suffix indicates "particular affirmation". They correspond to "all" and "some" respectively. While ni- by itself would act as a "universal negation", and ni- + -vu as "particular negation". Universal affirmation: whl'q'n,dii krupat'oram plak'at "All Vulcans have green blood" Universal negation: niwhl'q'n krupat'oram plak'at "No Vulcan has red blood" Particular affirmation: whl'q'n,vu krupat'oram plak'at "Some Vulcans have green blood" Particular negation: whl'q'n,vu nikrupat'oram plak'at "Some Vulcans do not have green blood" The -cee suffix I created to act as a categorical non-logical connective. It roughly means, "is a member of a catagory/class". The words with the connective, would be members of the catagory or class, and one uses it with a categorical type word, to make an assertion that Y X,cce, or X is in the category Y. For example: whl'q'n spok,cee sarek,cee sybok,cee "Spock, Sarek, and Sybok are all Vulcans". Now we can move to prepositional calculus, or symbolic logic to see those variables I spoke of earlier, in more detail. In formal Vulcan a statement can also be considered grammatically correct if it consist of a valid argument form. One such form, for example, we call Modus Ponens. It consist of the form: p --> q p --------- q Or in English: "If p then q. p therefore q". Where p and q both represent full statements. Now I will propose some more Vulcan grammatical particles, ci, ic and ^. Ci and ic act as starting and ending parenthetical particles. ^ acts as a seperator between the premises of a non-syllogistic argument. For example: "If Spock is a Vulcan then Spock has green blood. Spock is a Vulcan, therefore Spock has green blood." puu ci whl'q'n spok,cee ic tuu ci spok krupat'oram plak'at ic puu'ek tuu'ek ^ puu'a aaz tuu This works equally well with all of the standard argument forms. Let's do another example - a Hypothetical Syllogism: p --> q q --> r -------- p --> r "If Spock is a Vulcan then Spock has green blood. If Spock has green blood then Spock is not a human. Therefore if Spock is a Vulcan then Spock is not a Human." puu ci whl'q'n spok,cee ic tuu ci spok krupat'oram plak'at ic buu ci komi spok,nicee ic puu'ek tuu'ek ^ tuu'ek buu'ek aaz puu'ek buu'ek Now as the arguments get more complicated, one can see how presenting an argument thusly (in 137* characters) seems much clearer and simpler than: ci whl'q'n spok,cee icek ci spok krupat'oram plak'at icek ^ ci spok krupat'oram plak'at icek ci komi spok,nicee icek aaz ci whl'q'n spok,cee icek ci komi spok,nicee icek Which counts up as 171* characters, 20% more than the other example, and no where near as simple in structure. One could also do the same kind of abstracting of the arguments terms with a large syllogism: All Vulcans have green blood Spock is a Vulcan Therefore, Spock has Green blood at krupat'oram plak'at it spok ot whl'q'n ats ot,dii at its ot it,cee aaz it at The terms at, it, and ot refere to the major, minor and third terms, respectively. The abstracted example counts up to 81* characters, the first example of a syllogism had 87* characters. So with larger syllogism that disparity in size would increase. Also one can easily tell the mood and figure of each syllogism. The above would be: AII-1 form of syllogism, which is valid, and therefore grammatically correct. Now the problem with the abstracted form comes in when Vulcans would try to speak like this to humans. In the written form, both races should easily be able to see the structure. But humans have difficulty holding information in short term memory for any period of time. Human short term memory also can only hold a notoriously small amount of information. So if I spoke the above syllogism to another human, they may forget what at, it, or ot represents by the time I get to the aaz. Which may make Vulcan a little harder for humans to learn (not necessarily a bad thing, IMHO). * I used the UNIX command wc to do that counting, so the Vulcan forms would really have less characters than that, since characters like /uu/ or /aa/ would only appear as one character in written Vulcan, and one sound in spoken Vulcan. However, the abstracted form would still come out as having less characters, and in the same proportions. ---------- 0307 - Re: Logical Vulcan take II Saul Epstein Fri, 9 Jan 1998 08:50:03 -0600 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/? >To elucidate this with an example, I had to come up with a few more >grammar words. So let's back up a second, and see how we could do >simple categorical logic with Vulcan: > >All Vulcans have green blood >Spock is a Vulcan >Therefore, Spock has Green blood > >ats whl'q'n,dii krupat'oram plak'at >its whl'q'n spok,cee >aaz spok krupat'oram plak'at > >ats, its, and aaz act as "syllogistic operators", if you will. [snip] >I created the suffix -dii to indicate "universal affirmation", and >the -vu suffix indicates "particular affirmation". They correspond >to "all" and "some" respectively. While ni- by itself would act as >a "universal negation", and ni- + -vu as "particular negation". [snip] >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. 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 >Now we can move to prepositional calculus, or symbolic logic to see >those variables I spoke of earlier, in more detail. In formal Vulcan >a statement can also be considered grammatically correct if it >consist of a valid argument form. One such form, for example, we >call Modus Ponens. It consist of the form: > >p --> q >p >--------- >q > >Or in English: "If p then q. p therefore q". Where p and q both >represent full statements. Now I will propose some more Vulcan >grammatical particles, ci, ic and ^. Ci and ic act as starting and >ending parenthetical particles. ^ acts as a seperator between the >premises of a non-syllogistic argument. For example: > >"If Spock is a Vulcan then Spock has green blood. Spock is a Vulcan, >therefore Spock has green blood." > >puu ci whl'q'n spok,cee ic >tuu ci spok krupat'oram plak'at ic >puu'ek tuu'ek ^ puu'a aaz tuu Just to see if I'm following this... P (Spock is a Vulcan) T (Spock has green blood) P-if T-if; +P ergo T >This works equally well with all of the standard argument forms. >Let's do another example - a Hypothetical Syllogism: > >p --> q >q --> r >-------- >p --> r > >"If Spock is a Vulcan then Spock has green blood. If Spock has >green blood then Spock is not a human. Therefore if Spock is a >Vulcan then Spock is not a Human." > >puu ci whl'q'n spok,cee ic >tuu ci spok krupat'oram plak'at ic >buu ci komi spok,nicee ic >puu'ek tuu'ek ^ tuu'ek buu'ek aaz puu'ek buu'ek 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, P (diiwhl'q'n ceespok) T (spokat krupat'oram plak) B (diiqomi niceespock) P'ek T'ek ^ T'ek B'ek aaz P'ek B'ek or P (SET-Vulcan MEMBER-Spock) T (Spock-GENITIVE blue-green blood) B (SET-Terran NOT-MEMBER-Spock) P --> T; T --> B; ergo P --> B or Let P = "The set 'Vulcan-Humanoid' includes a member 'Spock.'" Let T = "Spock's blood is blue-green." Let B = "The set 'Terran-Humanoid' does not include a member 'Spock.'" P implies T; T implies B; therefore P implies B. >Also one can easily >tell the mood and figure of each syllogism. The above would be: AII-1 >form of syllogism, which is valid, and therefore grammatically >correct. The logical forms in the earlier examples also stand out well. Presenting an argument looks much like a geometry proof, consisting of a series of theorems used to transform given expressions into the conclusion. In this case, propositions are assigned to variables and then a known logical form is stated using the same variables. >Which may make >Vulcan a little harder for humans to learn (not necessarily a bad >thing, IMHO). I agree completely. 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? Speaker B: itsa. Speaker A: aaz ci spokat krupat'oram plak ic. Or? ---------- 0308 - Re: Logical Vulcan take II Rob Zook Fri, 09 Jan 1998 11:51:07 -0600 At 08:50 AM 1/9/98 -0600, you 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. >>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. Also, the way you used include- here more closely matches what I mean than using a set operator on the word Vulcan here. >>"If Spock is a Vulcan then Spock has green blood. If Spock has >>green blood then Spock is not a human. Therefore if Spock is a >>Vulcan then Spock is not a Human." >> >>puu ci whl'q'n spok,cee ic >>tuu ci spok krupat'oram plak'at ic >>buu ci komi spok,nicee ic >>puu'ek tuu'ek ^ tuu'ek buu'ek aaz puu'ek buu'ek > >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. 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. 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. >>Also one can easily >>tell the mood and figure of each syllogism. The above would be: >>AII-1 form of syllogism, which is valid, and therefore >>grammatically correct. > >The logical forms in the earlier examples also stand out well. >Presenting an argument looks much like a geometry proof, consisting >of a series of theorems used to transform given expressions into >the conclusion. In this case, propositions are assigned to >variables and then a known logical form is stated using the same >variables. It's also shorter to say. >I agree completely. 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 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? >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. 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. Also, naturally in a case like: ^ci whl'q'n ceespok icek ci spok'at krupat'oram plak icek ^ci spok'at krupat'oram plak icek ci komi niceespok icek aaz ci whl'q'n ceespok icek ci komi niceespok icek You have to use the parenthesis to show what the logical connectives apply to. As an afterthought, I think that putting ^- before each premises in a non-syllogism, instead of separating the premises, makes everything more self-consistant. Oooh! I neat thought just hit me in the back of the head! The particle cee is a non-logical connective. We could make all the non-logical connectives prefixes to contrast them with the logical connective which are all suffixes. However, I still think that the affirmatives and negatives should remain isomorphic with one another (so suffixes and prefixes, respectively). 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. ---------- 0309 - 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... ---------- 0310 - Re: Logical Vulcan take II (and other assorted sundries) Rob Zook Fri, 09 Jan 1998 17:22:30 -0600 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. >>>>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. >>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". >>>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, 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. >>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. 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. >>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 was regarding all such words as class words, or qualifier words. >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. Well, hmm..,I think at this point we might ask if Marketa will tell us what she thinks her father meant by such words. I don't want to arbitratily make this decision, because naturally I'm biased in one direction already ;-) >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." Hmmm..,oddly enough this reminds me of something else I'd like to see - abstraction operators. >> 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 .) That makes sense, I was kind of thinking in terms of an article system I guess. >>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? My fault. I mis-edited that line, when I was editing. That should read "Why not have a particle to represent each one of them?". 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. >>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... 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. 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"). Here's what I've thought of so far: Sets: er- in a set with, unordered set link, "and also" but forming a set. oc- in a sequence with, an ordered set link, "and then" ib- respectively, ordered distributed associate with a previous set iig- union of sets oor- intersection aal- cross product, a cartesian product of sets Intervals:(used in pairs only) ru- unordered interval, "between x and y" he- ordered interval, "from x to y (in sequence)" be- closed interval bracket marker xo- open interval bracket marker Grouping: ex- in common with uuts- in a mass with, "and" meaning "mixed together", forming a mass animals consists of er,le'matya er,seelat er,lanka'gar er,teresh,kaa living creatures consist of iig,animals iig,plants iig,fungi iig,protozoa to fix plomiik oc,do this oc,do this oc,do this sutarong sholinong setalong the'ran,se le'matya'ib sehlatib sehlatib "Sutar, Sholin, and Setal were killed by a le'matya, a sehlat and a sehlat, respectively." (-se- is a basic past tense I've been using in my proposal to expand the tense system) Now, at this point, I'm thinking we should regard -cee not as a non- logical connective but an abstraction particle. d cee-D D is a member of class/catagory d d faa-D D posesses some quality d ci-X-ic,ze "the statement X" d is-D visual abstraction "D looks like d" d es-D audio abstraction operator "D sound like d" d as-D tactile abstraction operator "D feels like d" d os-D olefactory abstraction operator "D smells like d" d us-D gustitory abstraction operator "D tastes like d" d ^s-D telepathic abstraction operator "D feels like d" There's probably others, but that's all I've come up with so far. w~l'q'n ceespok "Spock is a Vulcan" iw'hi'at is,tcakali "he had a rounded body (his body looks round)" th'laaseso iw'hi ci kroikikaa ic,ze "I advised him, 'stop now'." (-ki- basic present tense from tense proposal). I've been keeping my particles within the morphology for affix particles I've seen so far, that is VC or CV. which gives us an upper limit of 672 particles. Plenty of stuff to work with, I think. That will allow us to keep the words small, agglutinative or not. However, I wonder if Zick's(?) law holds for agglutinative languages? You know, that the guy who discovered that the proportion of words in a language is inverse to the number of letters in the word. So, 50% of the words in a language may be 2 letters, but only 15% of the words would be 3 letter words. I know it holds for most European languages, but I doubt it would apply to agglutinative ones. ---------- 0312 - 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. ;-, ---------- 0315 - Re: Logical Vulcan take II (and other assorted sundries) Rob Zook Sat, 10 Jan 1998 15:54:11 -0600 At 11:08 AM 1/10/98 -0600, Saul wrote: >From: Rob Zook >Date: Friday, January 9, 1998 5:22 PM > >> 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. Well, I agree sort of. But if I say a [u], there's till going to be a stop in there somewhere. Just pronouncing the sound alone, it ends, it stops [u.]. Also, most languages have a naming scheme for _all_ the letters, including the vowels. For example, in English, when I say the letter [u] refering to it as a letter, I say [yoo.]. It starts with a palatal voiced approximate, then the vowel, and ends with an unvoiced glottal stop. The same holds true with all the other vowels: [eyii.], [ii.], [ayii.], [oo.], [yoo.]. >> 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. The logic primer I've used says it a little clearer on universal affirmation than I can: "The _quality_ of a categorical proposition indicates the nature of the relationship it affirms between its subject and predicate terms: it is an *affirmative* proposition if it states that the class designated by its subject term is included, in whole or in part, in the class designated by its predicate term, and it is a *negative* proposition if it wholly or partially excludes members of the subject class from the predicate class. The predicate term is distributed in every negative proposition but undistributed in all affirmative propositions. "The _quantity_ of a categorical proposition, on the other hand, is a measure of the degree to which the relationship between its subject and predicate terms holds: it is a *universal* proposition if the asserted inclusion or exclusion holds for every member of the class designated by its subject term, and it is a *particular* proposition if it merely asserts that the relationship holds for one or more members of the subject class. Thus, the subject term is distributed in all universal propositions but undistributed in every particular propositions." I'm also not sure what you mean by a set reference. But the universal affirmation operator then "distributes" the subject term, but not the predicate term. >> 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? Actually entities do not possess qualities, only their abstractions. If I were to say, "Whorf is a linguistics genius", that amounts to the affirmation that all members of the catagory "Whorf" possess the quality of "linguistic genius". Since what I call Worf, is not the actual entity, but my personal conception of him. That being the class of all experiences I associate with the actual entity. An abstraction of all the sensory impressions and secondary facts I know about the actually entity. For the _only_ experience I ever have of the actual entity, consists of the abstracted sensory events, and secondary facts filtered thru the Whorf class. So in one sense, it amounts to the same thing, but in another it never happens. >I haven't mentioned it, that's true. It is, however, the way "entity >words" are used in the source documents. Hmm.,that could be, but I did not know how to inteprete them in that way until you mentioned the possibility. >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. I would not say that's quite accurate, from what Prof. Zvelebil put in his "more on Vulcan" message: a) Qa Apock-ash qa Kirk-ash, "Is it Spock or Kirk?" liter. "Interrog. -Spock-or interrog. - Kirk -or". Which I would gloss as "Is it true for Spock?, or is it true for Kirk?" e) Is it Vucaln blood?" = Qa W~l'q'n'at plak. "It is the precious green Vulcan blood. "= A: Although he uses it for sentences too. I would call it a proposition level interrogative. >> 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. Yes. >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. ;-, I don't mind calling them something else, but I'll be damned if I can think of what else we can call them :-) Maybe go back to "proposition connectives"? ---------- 0316 - Conjunction Saul Epstein Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:47:16 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Saturday, January 10, 1998 3:54 PM > At 11:08 AM 1/10/98 -0600, Saul wrote: > > >I guess I should ask you to explain to me the difference between > >universal affirmation and set reference. > > The logic primer I've used says it a little clearer on universal > affirmation than I can: > > "The _quality_ of a categorical proposition indicates the > nature of the relationship it affirms between its subject and > predicate terms: it is an *affirmative* proposition if it states > that the class designated by its subject term is included, in > whole or in part, in the class designated by its predicate term, > and it is a *negative* proposition if it wholly or partially > excludes members of the subject class from the predicate class. > The predicate term is distributed in every negative proposition > but undistributed in all affirmative propositions. So, "Spock is a Vulcan," is an affirmative proposition, Predicate(Vulcan) includes Subject(Spock) while "Kirk is not a Vulcan," is negative, Predicate(Vulcan) not-includes Subject(Kirk) > "The _quantity_ of a categorical proposition, on the other > hand, is a measure of the degree to which the relationship between > its subject and predicate terms holds: it is a *universal* > proposition if the asserted inclusion or exclusion holds for every > member of the class designated by its subject term, and it is a > *particular* proposition if it merely asserts that the relationship > holds for one or more members of the subject class. Thus, the > subject term is distributed in all universal propositions but > undistributed in every particular propositions." So my examples above are both universal, in that the class designated by the subject has in each case only one member which is univerally included in the class designated by the predicate. I guess my problem is that these are the quality and quantity of the proposition, and you're marking the proposition's terms. > I'm also not sure what you mean by a set reference. But the > universal affirmation operator then "distributes" the subject term, > but not the predicate term. I just mean a reference to a set. "All Vulcans" and "some Vulcans" and "no Vulcans," all refer to the set "Vulcans." The different references can describe different relationships between sets. "Some" makes an intersection, I've forgotten the names for the others -- any set people out there? > >> 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? > > Actually entities do not possess qualities, only their > abstractions. Then there are no entities. > If I were to say, "Whorf is a linguistics genius", that amounts to > the affirmation that all members of the catagory "Whorf" possess > the quality of "linguistic genius". Since what I call Worf, is not > the actual entity, but my personal conception of him. > > That being the class of all experiences I associate with the actual > entity. An abstraction of all the sensory impressions and secondary > facts I know about the actually entity. For the _only_ experience I > ever have of the actual entity, consists of the abstracted sensory > events, and secondary facts filtered thru the Whorf class. > > So in one sense, it amounts to the same thing, but in another it > never happens. Ha. So in the first sense it's worth noting once and remembering but also moving on as if it were the same thing, while in the second the world dissolves. Interesting choice. > >I haven't mentioned it, that's true. It is, however, the way > >"entity words" are used in the source documents. > > Hmm.,that could be, but I did not know how to inteprete them in > that way until you mentioned the possibility. > > >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. > > I would not say that's quite accurate, from what Prof. Zvelebil put > in his "more on Vulcan" message: > > a) Qa Apock-ash qa Kirk-ash, "Is it Spock or Kirk?" liter. > "Interrog. -Spock-or interrog. - Kirk -or". > > Which I would gloss as "Is it true for Spock?, or is it true for > Kirk?" > > e) Is it Vucaln blood?" = Qa W~l'q'n'at plak. > "It is the precious green Vulcan blood. "= A: > > Although he uses it for sentences too. I would call it a > proposition level interrogative. Uh, these are also sentences, though. I just meant that doesn't act as a particular focus of inquiry, like "what" and its ilk, but stands as a notification that inquiry is taking place, exactly like a spoken question mark. > >> 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. > > Yes. Well, it's good to get _that_ cleared up... > >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. ;-, > > I don't mind calling them something else, but I'll be damned if I > can think of what else we can call them :-) > > Maybe go back to "proposition connectives"? I'll have to think about what it is we're trying to name... ---------- 0319 - Re: Conjunction Rob Zook Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:29:12 -0600 At 11:47 AM 1/11/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: >I guess my problem is that these are the quality and quantity of the >proposition, and you're marking the proposition's terms. Yeah, you're right. I'm not sure how to clear this up, though. I guess if we leave the quality and quantity out of things, then we can simply leave dii- as "all members of a set/class", and cii- as "a member of class". So that cee- replaces the coupla "is" in expressions involving a catagorical/class term. Now I suppose one could think of a class as a set. In colloqual use, one might even use them interchangible. However, I mean class in it's sense of "a group whose members have certain attibutes in common; a catagory". So, I think of set by the more general mathematical definition of, "a collection of distinct elements". In the mathematical set, the members do not _necessarily_ have any similarity to one another. A set would seem more abstract than my intent, in "Spock is a Vulcan". >> I'm also not sure what you mean by a set reference. But the >> universal affirmation operator then "distributes" the subject term, >> but not the predicate term. > >I just mean a reference to a set. "All Vulcans" and "some Vulcans" >and "no Vulcans," all refer to the set "Vulcans." Yes, and No. In my usage (in distinguishing collogual, logical and mathematical), I mean a class not a set, because when I say, "Spock is a Vulcan". I'm not only asserting he's a member of the set which includes all Vulcans, but also that he therefore possesses qualities which all Vulcans have in common. Perhaps, it would be better to always gloss as "Spock is a member of the class 'Vulcan'". >The different references can describe different relationships between >sets. "Some" makes an intersection, I've forgotten the names for the >others -- any set people out there? Actually, "some", in the context of sets, would refer to a sub-set, within a set. Some, but not all members. An intersection, refers to a set of elements which two or more sets have in common. While a union would be a set consisting of all elements in two or more sets. >> Actually entities do not possess qualities, only their >>abstractions. > >Then there are no entities. I don't understand, how that follows. I was trying to make a distinction between words for things, and das ding an sich. An entity is a word, which describes something at the most abstract level possible. And so it represents an abstraction we have created of some thing. A purely mental abstraction. >> If I were to say, "Whorf is a linguistics genius", that amounts to >> the affirmation that all members of the catagory "Whorf" possess >> the quality of "linguistic genius". Since what I call Worf, is not >> the actual entity, but my personal conception of him. >> >> That being the class of all experiences I associate with the actual >> entity. An abstraction of all the sensory impressions and secondary > >> facts I know about the actually entity. For the _only_ experience I >> ever have of the actual entity, consists of the abstracted sensory >> events, and secondary facts filtered thru the Whorf class. >> >> So in one sense, it amounts to the same thing, but in another it >> never happens. > >Ha. So in the first sense it's worth noting once and remembering but >also moving on as if it were the same thing, while in the second the >world dissolves. Interesting choice. How does the world dissolve? I never saw that before, excepting the time, my dentist gave me some sodium pentathol before extracting my wisdom teeth. Great stuf, sodium pentathol. >> a) Qa Apock-ash qa Kirk-ash, "Is it Spock or Kirk?" liter. >> "Interrog. -Spock-or interrog. - Kirk -or". >> >> Which I would gloss as "Is it true for Spock?, or is it true for >> Kirk?" >> >> e) Is it Vucaln blood?" = Qa W~l'q'n'at plak. >> "It is the precious green Vulcan blood. "= A: >> >> Although he uses it for sentences too. I would call it a >> proposition level interrogative. > >Uh, these are also sentences, though. I just meant that doesn't >act as a particular focus of inquiry, like "what" and its ilk, but >stands as a notification that inquiry is taking place, exactly like a >spoken question mark. Well, example a) demonstrates what I'm getting at. I assumed that when you set it was a sentence interogative that one would use it only once per sentance. Where as in example a), Prof. Zvelebil uses it in each of the propositions in a disjunction. ---------- 0322 - Re: Conjunction Saul Epstein Sun, 11 Jan 1998 15:22:09 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Sunday, January 11, 1998 1:29 PM > Now I suppose one could think of a class as a set. In colloqual > use, one might even use them interchangible. However, I mean class > in it's sense of "a group whose members have certain attibutes in > common; a catagory". So, I think of set by the more general > mathematical definition of, "a collection of distinct elements". > In the mathematical set, the members do not _necessarily_ have > any similarity to one another. Oh! That I didn't know. I mean, how often does anyone bother to define a set of things that have nothing in common? Could be all the time, actually. I had a string of worthless math teachers early on and never recovered. > A set would seem more abstract than my intent, in "Spock is a > Vulcan". Well, you can probably read "class" for each of my uses of "set" then. > >> I'm also not sure what you mean by a set reference. But the > >> universal affirmation operator then "distributes" the subject > >> term, but not the predicate term. > > > >I just mean a reference to a set. "All Vulcans" and "some Vulcans" > >and "no Vulcans," all refer to the set "Vulcans." > > Yes, and No. In my usage (in distinguishing collogual, logical and > mathematical), I mean a class not a set, because when I say, "Spock > is a Vulcan". I'm not only asserting he's a member of the set which > includes all Vulcans, but also that he therefore possesses > qualities which all Vulcans have in common. Right. Which I was assuming was implied. What else would the set of Vulcans consist of but entities possessing the qualities of Vulcans? > Perhaps, it would be better to always gloss as > "Spock is a member of the class 'Vulcan'". > > >The different references can describe different relationships > >between sets. "Some" makes an intersection, I've forgotten the > >names for the others -- any set people out there? > > Actually, "some", in the context of sets, would refer to a sub-set, > within a set. Some, but not all members. An intersection, refers to > a set of elements which two or more sets have in common. While a > union would be a set consisting of all elements in two or more sets. That's what I meant. ("different relationships _between sets_") So "Some Vulcans are male" notes an intersection of the set "Vulcans" and the set "Male things." > >> Actually entities do not possess qualities, only their > >> abstractions. > > > >Then there are no entities. > > I don't understand, how that follows. I was trying to make a > distinction between words for things, and das ding an sich. > An entity is a word, which describes something at the most > abstract level possible. And so it represents an abstraction > we have created of some thing. A purely mental abstraction. What I meant to suggest was this question. What is a thing with no qualities? It isn't. The names of entities are words. Words are entities, and therefore their own names. I'm not using entity to mean the idea or the name of something. We have other words for that. In other words, all words are entities, and therfore some entities are words. But, just because entities all have names, doesn't mean all entities are words. And in any case, while it's important to recognize the mental and abstract nature of all this, there doesn't seem to BE anything else to work with, which makes "mental abstraction" an indistinct characterization. > >> If I were to say, "Whorf is a linguistics genius", that amounts > >> to the affirmation that all members of the catagory "Whorf" > >> possess the quality of "linguistic genius". Since what I call > >> Worf, is not the actual entity, but my personal conception of > >> him. > >> > >> That being the class of all experiences I associate with the > >> actual entity. An abstraction of all the sensory impressions > >> and secondary facts I know about the actually entity. For the > >> _only_ experience I ever have of the actual entity, consists > >> of the abstracted sensory events, and secondary facts filtered > >> thru the Whorf class. All of which makes the distinction between some supposedly more concrete Whorf and the "abstract" Whorf of experience useless. Important, yes, vital even. But useless. > >> So in one sense, it amounts to the same thing, but in another it > >> never happens. > > > >Ha. So in the first sense it's worth noting once and remembering > >but also moving on as if it were the same thing, while in the > >second the world dissolves. Interesting choice. > > How does the world dissolve? I never saw that before, excepting the > time, my dentist gave me some sodium pentathol before extracting > my wisdom teeth. Great stuf, sodium pentathol. Let's hope he didn't ask you any personal questions... > >> a) Qa Apock-ash qa Kirk-ash, "Is it Spock or Kirk?" liter. > >> "Interrog. -Spock-or interrog. - Kirk -or". > >> > >> Which I would gloss as "Is it true for Spock?, or is it true for > >> Kirk?" > >> > >> e) Is it Vucaln blood?" = Qa W~l'q'n'at plak. > >> "It is the precious green Vulcan blood. "= A: > >> > >> Although he uses it for sentences too. I would call it a > >> proposition level interrogative. > > > >Uh, these are also sentences, though. I just meant that > >doesn't act as a particular focus of inquiry, like "what" and its > >ilk, but stands as a notification that inquiry is taking place, > >exactly like a spoken question mark. > > Well, example a) demonstrates what I'm getting at. I assumed that > when you set it was a sentence interogative that one would use it > only once per sentance. Where as in example a), Prof. Zvelebil uses > it in each of the propositions in a disjunction. And hence my clarification that I meant acts a question mark, not as a question. ---------- 0324 - Re: Conjunction Rob Zook Mon, 12 Jan 1998 08:56:43 -0600 At 03:22 PM 1/11/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: >From: Rob Zook >Date: Sunday, January 11, 1998 1:29 PM > >> Now I suppose one could think of a class as a set. In colloqual >> use, one might even use them interchangible. However, I mean class >> in it's sense of "a group whose members have certain attibutes in >> common; a catagory". So, I think of set by the more general >> mathematical definition of, "a collection of distinct elements". >> In the mathematical set, the members do not _necessarily_ have >> any similarity to one another. > >Oh! That I didn't know. I mean, how often does anyone bother to >define a set of things that have nothing in common? Not, "nothing in common", but not necessarily similar. For example, the set of all things in the trash can. Most of the things in my trash can have no similarity to each other, but they do have one thing in common - location inside the same container. >Could be all the >time, actually. I had a string of worthless math teachers early on >and never recovered. So, did I. Luckily our family friend of many years, was an excellant math teacher as well. He helped me a great deal. I gotta tell you, I'm going to homeschool my kids. I don't want to subject my kids to situation in public schools nowdays. >> A set would seem more abstract than my intent, in "Spock is a >> Vulcan". > >Well, you can probably read "class" for each of my uses of "set" >then. Ok, then you can probably read "tense/aspect/whatever" for my uses of the word tense ;> >That's what I meant. ("different relationships _between sets_") So >"Some Vulcans are male" notes an intersection of the set "Vulcans" >and the set "Male things." But that's a slightly different distinction. I mean it's one assumption, behind the phrase, but interprating it as only meaning that looses the other connotation of class - elements possessing similar qualities. >> >Then there are no entities. >> >> I don't understand, how that follows. I was trying to make a >> distinction between words for things, and das ding an sich. >> An entity is a word, which describes something at the most >> abstract level possible. And so it represents an abstraction >> we have created of some thing. A purely mental abstraction. > >What I meant to suggest was this question. What is a thing with no >qualities? It isn't. That seems like a nice strange loop too. >The names of entities are words. Words are entities, and therefore >their own names. I'm not using entity to mean the idea or the name of >something. We have other words for that. What I meant was entity refers to a object devoid of any it's possible characteristics or qualities, i,e. at the most abstracted level. >In other words, all words are entities, and therfore some entities >are words. But, just because entities all have names, doesn't mean >all entities are words. I did not imply that. I said "An entity is a word which describes something at the most abstract level possible". I guess I should have said, The word 'entity' describes some bit o' <*> at the most abstract level possible". BTW, One of the benefits of a non-ambiguous grammar is supposedly we won't have problems like this. >And in any case, while it's important to >recognize the mental and abstract nature of all this, there doesn't >seem to BE anything else to work with, which makes "mental >abstraction" an indistinct characterization. Perhaps, a little redundant, too. Although, couldn't one consider a sculpture or a painting a physical abstraction? :-) >All of which makes the distinction between some supposedly more >concrete Whorf and the "abstract" Whorf of experience useless. >Important, yes, vital even. But useless. Not, useless. People identify with their abstractions of those bits of <*> and the words describing those bits of <*>, so thouroughly, that they block out other aspects of the bits of <*>. Sometimes it's absolutely necessary, but if one has no awareness that the process occurs, one cannot control it. That is useful. Or, to put it more elegantly, "Tis an ill wind that blows no minds". >And hence my clarification that I meant acts a question mark, >not as a question. Well, I guess I did not find that very clear-ifying ;-) ---------- 0326 - Re: Conjunction Saul Epstein Tue, 13 Jan 1998 13:18:21 -0600 From: Rob Zook Date: Monday, January 12, 1998 9:11 AM >At 03:22 PM 1/11/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: >>From: Rob Zook >>Date: Sunday, January 11, 1998 1:29 PM >> >>> Now I suppose one could think of a class as a set. In colloqual >>> use, one might even use them interchangible. However, I mean class >>> in it's sense of "a group whose members have certain attibutes in >>> common; a catagory". So, I think of set by the more general >>> mathematical definition of, "a collection of distinct elements". >>> In the mathematical set, the members do not _necessarily_ have >>> any similarity to one another. >> >>Oh! That I didn't know. I mean, how often does anyone bother to >>define a set of things that have nothing in common? > >Not, "nothing in common", but not necessarily similar. For example, >the set of all things in the trash can. Most of the things in my >trash can have no similarity to each other, but they do have one >thing in common - location inside the same container. So am I understanding correctly that what matters is what "owns" the similarity? Objects with similar locations may constitute a set on that basis, but if the objects THEMSELVES aren't similar, they can't constitute a class? >>> A set would seem more abstract than my intent, in "Spock is a >>> Vulcan". >> >>Well, you can probably read "class" for each of my uses of "set" >>then. > >Ok, then you can probably read "tense/aspect/whatever" for my >uses of the word tense ;> Touché. However, I'm now tempted to retract my statement. If my understanding of the difference between set and class is anything like correct, I actually did mean set when I said set. >>That's what I meant. ("different relationships _between sets_") So >>"Some Vulcans are male" notes an intersection of the set "Vulcans" >>and the set "Male things." > >But that's a slightly different distinction. I mean it's one >assumption, behind the phrase, but interprating it as only meaning >that looses the other connotation of class - elements possessing >similar qualities. This potentially confuses me again. Location seems to me to be a property, so that objects whose locations are similar could, according to this, constitute a class of similarly located objects. Do objects in a class have to be similar in all their properties? >>> >Then there are no entities. >>> >>> I don't understand, how that follows. I was trying to make a >>> distinction between words for things, and das ding an sich. >>> An entity is a word, which describes something at the most >>> abstract level possible. And so it represents an abstraction >>> we have created of some thing. A purely mental abstraction. >> >>What I meant to suggest was this question. What is a thing with no >>qualities? It isn't. > >That seems like a nice strange loop too. I'm just curious to know if it's your understanding that an undefined thing can exist. >>The names of entities are words. Words are entities, and therefore >>their own names. I'm not using entity to mean the idea or the name >>of something. We have other words for that. > >What I meant was entity refers to a object devoid of any it's >possible characteristics or qualities, i,e. at the most abstracted >level. OK. I don't think objects exist at that level. >>In other words, all words are entities, and therfore some entities >>are words. But, just because entities all have names, doesn't mean >>all entities are words. > >I did not imply that. I said "An entity is a word which describes >something at the most abstract level possible". I guess I should have >said, The word 'entity' describes some bit o' <*> at the most >abstract level possible". BTW, One of the benefits of a non-ambiguous >grammar is supposedly we won't have problems like this. OK. That's not my understanding of the word "entity," hence my objections. At the most abstract level possible, <*> and all of its bits are isomorphic, in that they are equally amorphous. Which makes talking about the bits..,unlikely? >>And in any case, while it's important to >>recognize the mental and abstract nature of all this, there doesn't >>seem to BE anything else to work with, which makes "mental >>abstraction" an indistinct characterization. > >Perhaps, a little redundant, too. Although, couldn't one consider >a sculpture or a painting a physical abstraction? :-) > >>All of which makes the distinction between some supposedly more >>concrete Whorf and the "abstract" Whorf of experience useless. >>Important, yes, vital even. But useless. > >Not, useless. People identify with their abstractions of those bits >of <*> and the words describing those bits of <*>, so thouroughly, >that they block out other aspects of the bits of <*>. Sometimes it's >absolutely necessary, but if one has no awareness that the process >occurs, one cannot control it. That is useful. Or, to put it more >elegantly, "Tis an ill wind that blows no minds". Indeed, very nice. What I meant by useless is that, in itself, the recognition that there are no things, only references, does nothing but undermine existence at all levels, including human. It is important and necessary, I don't mean to disagree with you on that. But if we are to create any value through being in and interacting with the world, we have to ignore it. So it seems that the perfect mental state would be one of simultaneous knowledge and ignorance of this one truth. Knowledge because it is true, but ignorance because if it's true nothing else is. >>And hence my clarification that I meant acts a question mark, >>not as a question. > >Well, I guess I did not find that very clear-ifying ;-) Then, or now? I could spend more time on that, which would certainly be more constructive. ---------- End Part 5 -- from Saul Epstein locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus "Surakri' ow'phacur the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'pharka the's'hi surakecha'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at