Re: universal languages

>
>Some of the participants in a the discussion assume that
>intensionality = quotation.  It's true that quotation is one way to
>implement intensionality, but it's not the only way.  The other is
>just to use possible-world semantics.  This tends to be more compact
>but lets in a few too many inferences.

Actually quotation ISNT one way to implement intensionality. You 
can't (reasonably) interpret believes, for example, as a predicate on 
quoted expressions, ie interpret
Fred believes Bush isnt the president
as having the logical form:
(Believes Fred "Bush isnt the president")

This is tempting, but it doesnt work, for technical reasons which 
were elaborated by Montague and which I confess I can no longer 
remember the details of.  But believe me, you can't.

<snip>
>   >  What exactly is the role RDF plays in all this?
>
>   It's a little teeny formal system based on URIs and XML:
>   two place predicates only, conjunctions and existentials but no
>   negation, disjunction, universals, etc.
>
>The problem is that RDF is sometimes the small language we plan to
>use, and other times it's just the medium in which the actual language
>is going to be written.  What's driving me a little crazy is that its
>advocates switch back and forth between these two positions.  When its
>inadequacies as a language are pointed out, the RDFites say, "We can
>implement any language we like."  But then the next day they're using
>RDF as the actual language again.

Right on!  It's driving me crazy too.

>Let me repeat the problem: If RDF is just a mechanism for describing
>the syntax of some other language, then it's irrelevant.  If it is the
>actual language, then it's inadequate.

:-)

Pat Hayes

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Received on Monday, 5 February 2001 23:27:40 UTC