do djica loi ckafi je'i tcati

[Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>]

Here is some text from Quine, WORD AND OBJECT, that I took from article
32 on  Opacity in Certain Verbs.  I just read this this morning, its
part of a larger whole on opacity, and I'm heavily editing it.

"Just as looking for is endeavoring to find, so hunting is endeavoring
to shoot or capture.  The difference between the two cases of
'Earnest is hunting lions' is *prima facie a difference in scope:

(7) Ernest is endeavoring that some lion is such that Ernest shoots
it,
(8) Some lion is such that Earnest is endeavoring that Ernest shoots
it..

(Deletions and he boils the above sentences down to:

(11)Ernest is endeavoring (-to cause) himself to shoot a lion,
(12) Ernest is endeavoring (-to cause) himself and a (certain)
lion to be related as shooter and shot.

When 'Ernest is hunting lions' is construed as (12), 'hunt' qualifies as
a straightforward relative term. 'Hunt' is so used in 'man-hunting', as
applied to the police; not as applied to man-hunting lions.  'Hunt in
the latter use, and in 'unicorn-hunting' and in the commonest use of
'lion-hunting' is not a term; it is an opaque verb whose use is
clarified by the paraphrase (11).

What we have been remarking of 'hunt' or 'look for' applies *mutis
mutandis to 'want' and 'wish'; for to want is to wish to have. 'I want a
sloop' in the opaque sense is parallel to (11): 'I wish myself to have a
sloop' (to be a sloop owner)'; 'I want a sloop' in the transparent
sense, 'There is a sloop I want', comes out parallel to (12).  Only in
the latter sense is 'want' a relative term, relating people to sloops.
In the other or opaque sense it is not a relative term relating people
to anything at all, concrete or abstract, real or ideal. It is a
shortcut verb whose use is set forth by 'I wish myself to have a
sloop',wherein 'have' and 'sloop' continue to rate as general terms as
usual but merely happen to have an opaque construction 'wish to'
overlying them.  This point needs to be noticed by philosophers worried
over the nature of objects of desire.
(Deletions)

In general it is a good rule thus to try by paraphrase to account for
non-referential positions by explicitly opaque constructions.....
it exposes a structure startling unlike what one usually associates with
the grammatical form of 'Ernest is hunting lions' and 'I want a sloop'
(deletions)

Our paraphrases, aimed at bringing out the distinction between
referential and non-referential positions, have been cumbersome at best,
but the most cumbersome ones are the ones least needed. " End Quine
quote.

I do not pretend to understand all the above yet, but it is clear that
we are traversing mapped territory, looking for boxes instead of sloops.


I took a walk, and now I am going to try to put Quine's sloop examples
into lojban, but I'll substitute box for sloop.
His example again:

I want a sloop.

Quine's translations:
        Opaque case: I wish myself to have a sloop (to be a sloop
        owner).
        Transparent case: There is a sloop I want.

Chris Bogart's example: "I need a box [any box whatever]."

My translations:
        Opaque case:
                want(I, X), &X=have_box(I).               OR
                djica mi da ije da du le nu mi cu tanpo'e  OR
                mi djica le nu mi cu tanpo'e
                I want the event of being a box-owner.

        Transparent case:
                exists(X), &X=box,&want(I,X ). OR
                da du tanxe ije mi djica da   OR
                mi djica da poi tanxe
                I want something which is a box.

I don't know if either of these answer to what Chris has in mind.
I rather liked my first suggestion, as corrected by jorge:

mi nitcu le su'u me le taxpu'i me'u da kei
I want the in-mind abstracton about boxing things.

And now I am beginning to be haunted by a Beatles lyric:
"Something in the way she walks.."
How do you say that "something" in lojban when you don't really want it
instantiated to anything known?

djer jlk@netcom.com