File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0304, message 18


Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 12:06:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Jason Stuart <jts0803odon-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Being & Time 2


--0-1802956214-1049227604=:38051


 
 GEVANS613-AT-aol.com wrote:
In 
Jud: Redundancy is the attribute of being superfluous and unneeded - if as you say it can't be escaped, that suggests it is needed and not redundant - so why say that it's redundant? 


Because it is.  I'm not saying anything about it being "not needed," I'm saying that an inherent characteristic of language is semantic redundancy.  This is not a judgment or a value statement, Jud.


Jason: 
A: Yes, it is. B: No, it isn't. In A, we confirm that "it" is both by saying "yes" and by using "is." In B, we say "no" and then compound that by adding the "not" to "is." That's built-in redundancy. 

Jud: 
>It's not a redundancy.

Yes, it is.  Take your sentence above.  Look at "a redundancy."  The "redundancy" is not in a plural form--it's in a singular form.  Yet we still have "a" in front of it to indicate the singular.  Therefore, a similar message is transmitted by two different words.  That is redundancy.   

>It's a clarification in case the question was a negative one. 

No, it's not.  No clarification was needed.  I don't need to know what we're talking about, or what I'm answering, to conjugate a verb, or keep my tenses in agreement, or indicate a subject acting upon an object.  

>If I said to you: "Is it not broken?" you answer "Yes, it is" or "No it isn't" to avoid >ambiguity. BTW - non-contextual examples like the above should be avoided. 

Context doesn't matter, Jud.  The redundancy occurs in any context.  Take "Is it not broken?" and you can perform the same procedure to identify redundancies within the sentence.  


>Jud: 
>"IS" confirms a singularity which may not always be obvious as provided by the >subject's name, 

Really?  If "Jud" is the subject, it is obvious that Jud "is," or "will be," or "was."  Jud never "are."  

>it also tells us the "action" is happening in the present. Its agreement with the >number of the subject also acts as a communicative back-up - if we get rid of the >number agreement the temporal information goes down the plug-hole with it too.. 

There you go, then.  It's redundant information.  If it agrees with the number, the two share that information.  That information is transmitted by both.  


>Jud: 
>If your redundancy claim were to be  true and we ditched any agreement, we'd all >be in the communicative doo-doo.

I'm not suggesting we "ditch" agreement, and to say that the truth of my redundancy "claim" (I certainly didn't make this up, this is textbook stuff) leads to ditching agreement, whatever that is, is fallacious reasoning.  

>The "is" in the sentence: "The leaf is green" not only confirms the singularity of the >leaf, but provides the temporal info that it is green now. and not yesterday or next >week. 

Yup.  I agree.  One "leaf" "is."  Try this:  "The leaf are green."  Doesn't work, but the verb is still the same, the sentence construction is correct--how do we know, then?  Because "leaf" contains information about number that must correspond to similar (i.e. redundant) information in the verb.   

> Any avoidance of the use of the copula entails torturous and time-consuming >periphrasis and circumlocution as you will find out if you visit any of the >Korzybskyan websites, { key in General Semantics} that advocate copuletic >deletion for the encouragement stylistic improvement. 

The "plain-language" thing is going to come back and bite you in the ass, Jud.  


>Jud: 
>But [BE] doesn't supply information about "existence"

Yes it does.  "I am."  I just supplied you with some information about my existence.  What you're looking for is a qualification that language is not equipped to provide, nor should it be asked to.  

> - it can't - because "existence" doesn't exist -only the entities that exist exist. 

"Existence" not existing doesn't have much to do with what the verb "to be" denotes in our language.  If you want to insist on an abstract philosophical point, ok; but insisting that a word can't function as it does function because of this philosophical belief is not ok.  

 

>The words "exist" and "BE" have distinct roles and although "exist" sometimes >crosses the ontological border into BE country: even then there are semantic >differences. 

Both are verbs.  Their roles can't be that distinct.  "To exist or not to exist" is just as understandable as "To be or not to be."  It can be argued that the two phrases mean precisely the same thing.  So how distinct can they be?  


>Jud: 
>The way we use the infinitive: "to be" as in:  "He's gone to London to be a >consultant architect" does not give any of the "redundant information that you claim. 

It sure does.  Each part of the sentence is in agreement because it points to a meaning that is reinforced somewhere else:  by tense, by position, tone of voice, inflection, italics, denotation...lots of things, really.  In this case "to be" and "a consultant architect" agree.  Just because it's an infinitive doesn't mean it's exempt from rules of usage.  

>The same unvarying "to be" is employed in: 

>"They went to London to be consultant architects." 
>"They are going to London to be consultant architects." 
>"Philip, Trudy, Rex and Patricia went to London to be consultant architects." 
>"She will be going to London to be a consultant architect." 
>"The girls went to London to be consultant architects." 
>"The whole of class five have gone to London to be consultant architects." 
>"He and his girlfriend went to London to be consultant architects." 


>All the "to beez" in the above give no "redundant" information regarding number or >temporal variation. 

But they do give information regarding the expected use of the verb and the state of the subject.  They went, in order to be.  "He and his girlfriend went to London was consultant architects" and "He to be his girlfriend went to London consultant architects" all convey the same information, but do not work because language is rule-bound.  

>Jud: That's the problem and therein lies the confusion. If plain language were used >instead of Klingon or Elfish it would be laughed out of court. 

Yes, but:

>Any avoidance of the use of the copula entails torturous and time-consuming >periphrasis and circumlocution as you will find out if you visit any of the >Korzybskyan websites, { key in General Semantics} that advocate copuletic >deletion for the encouragement stylistic improvement. 

JS



!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------!

 "...even if he recopied them later, as I suspect he sometimes did, he marked his card or cards not with the date of his final adjustments, but with that of his Corrected Draft or first Fair Copy. I mean, he preserved the date of actual creation rather than that of second or third thoughts. There is a very loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings."



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 GEVANS613-AT-aol.com wrote:

In
Jud: Redundancy is the attribute of being superfluous and unneeded - if as you say it can't be escaped, that suggests it is needed and not redundant - so why say that it's redundant?

Because it is.  I'm not saying anything about it being "not needed," I'm saying that an inherent characteristic of language is semantic redundancy.  This is not a judgment or a value statement, Jud.


Jason:
A: Yes, it is. B: No, it isn't. In A, we confirm that "it" is both by saying "yes" and by using "is." In B, we say "no" and then compound that by adding the "not" to "is." That's built-in redundancy.

Jud:
>It's not a redundancy.

Yes, it is.  Take your sentence above.  Look at "a redundancy."  The "redundancy" is not in a plural form--it's in a singular form.  Yet we still have "a" in front of it to indicate the singular.  Therefore, a similar message is transmitted by two different words.  That is redundancy.   

>It's a clarification in case the question was a negative one.

No, it's not.  No clarification was needed.  I don't need to know what we're talking about, or what I'm answering, to conjugate a verb, or keep my tenses in agreement, or indicate a subject acting upon an object. 

>If I said to you: "Is it not broken?" you answer "Yes, it is" or "No it isn't" to avoid >ambiguity. BTW - non-contextual examples like the above should be avoided.

Context doesn't matter, Jud.  The redundancy occurs in any context.  Take "Is it not broken?" and you can perform the same procedure to identify redundancies within the sentence. 


>Jud:
>"IS" confirms a singularity which may not always be obvious as provided by the >subject's name,

Really?  If "Jud" is the subject, it is obvious that Jud "is," or "will be," or "was."  Jud never "are." 

>it also tells us the "action" is happening in the present. Its agreement with the >number of the subject also acts as a communicative back-up - if we get rid of the >number agreement the temporal information goes down the plug-hole with it too..

There you go, then.  It's redundant information.  If it agrees with the number, the two share that information.  That information is transmitted by both. 


>Jud:
>If your redundancy claim were to be  true and we ditched any agreement, we'd all >be in the communicative doo-doo.

I'm not suggesting we "ditch" agreement, and to say that the truth of my redundancy "claim" (I certainly didn't make this up, this is textbook stuff) leads to ditching agreement, whatever that is, is fallacious reasoning. 

>The "is" in the sentence: "The leaf is green" not only confirms the singularity of the >leaf, but provides the temporal info that it is green now. and not yesterday or next >week.

Yup.  I agree.  One "leaf" "is."  Try this:  "The leaf are green."  Doesn't work, but the verb is still the same, the sentence construction is correct--how do we know, then?  Because "leaf" contains information about number that must correspond to similar (i.e. redundant) information in the verb.   

> Any avoidance of the use of the copula entails torturous and time-consuming >periphrasis and circumlocution as you will find out if you visit any of the >Korzybskyan websites, { key in General Semantics} that advocate copuletic >deletion for the encouragement stylistic improvement.

The "plain-language" thing is going to come back and bite you in the ass, Jud. 


>Jud:
>But [BE] doesn't supply information about "existence"

Yes it does.  "I am."  I just supplied you with some information about my existence.  What you're looking for is a qualification that language is not equipped to provide, nor should it be asked to. 

> - it can't - because "existence" doesn't exist -only the entities that exist exist.

"Existence" not existing doesn't have much to do with what the verb "to be" denotes in our language.  If you want to insist on an abstract philosophical point, ok; but insisting that a word can't function as it does function because of this philosophical belief is not ok. 

 

>The words "exist" and "BE" have distinct roles and although "exist" sometimes >crosses the ontological border into BE country: even then there are semantic >differences.

Both are verbs.  Their roles can't be that distinct.  "To exist or not to exist" is just as understandable as "To be or not to be."  It can be argued that the two phrases mean precisely the same thing.  So how distinct can they be? 


>Jud:
>The way we use the infinitive: "to be" as in:  "He's gone to London to be a >consultant architect" does not give any of the "redundant information that you claim.

It sure does.  Each part of the sentence is in agreement because it points to a meaning that is reinforced somewhere else:  by tense, by position, tone of voice, inflection, italics, denotation...lots of things, really.  In this case "to be" and "a consultant architect" agree.  Just because it's an infinitive doesn't mean it's exempt from rules of usage. 

>The same unvarying "to be" is employed in:

>"They went to London to be consultant architects."
>"They are going to London to be consultant architects."
>"Philip, Trudy, Rex and Patricia went to London to be consultant architects."
>"She will be going to London to be a consultant architect."
>"The girls went to London to be consultant architects."
>"The whole of class five have gone to London to be consultant architects."
>"He and his girlfriend went to London to be consultant architects."

>All the "to beez" in the above give no "redundant" information regarding number or >temporal variation.

But they do give information regarding the expected use of the verb and the state of the subject.  They went, in order to be.  "He and his girlfriend went to London was consultant architects" and "He to be his girlfriend went to London consultant architects" all convey the same information, but do not work because language is rule-bound. 

>Jud: That's the problem and therein lies the confusion. If plain language were used >instead of Klingon or Elfish it would be laughed out of court.

Yes, but:

>Any avoidance of the use of the copula entails torturous and time-consuming >periphrasis and circumlocution as you will find out if you visit any of the >Korzybskyan websites, { key in General Semantics} that advocate copuletic >deletion for the encouragement stylistic improvement.

JS



!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------!

 "...even if he recopied them later, as I suspect he sometimes did, he marked his card or cards not with the date of his final adjustments, but with that of his Corrected Draft or first Fair Copy. I mean, he preserved the date of actual creation rather than that of second or third thoughts. There is a very loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings."



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