Search results for 'tag:Predicates tag:Literature' matching tags 'Predicates' and 'Literature'

Re: Your interpretation on this statement.

Pter — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:16:50 GMT

Jon Salt wrote:
Forbes and Calif Jim are entirely missing the point. The only reason the question would arise is that the initial sentence is bad English. If restricted does not refer to laws then clearly in both initial examples there is indeed one person present. That is what caused the confusion so it is a question concerning the use of "restricted". All the venn diagrams etc are a perfect waste of time. The word restricted usually refers to laws, so we cannot be clear if it refers to a law in the initial example, or if it does not. Thus the question is unclear, it is a silly question which will lead to a linguistic dispute, and the question should not be thus phrased. That is what Clive said, in a less salty way, and that was enough said.

Not really. The question is concerning the use (or misuse) of the word restricted when talking about "People being admitted". There is a subtle difference in meaning when the word "restricted" is referring to the individual elements of the set/class (as a rule or law or whatever you call it) when compared with referring to the set/class as a whole (as a descriptive statement on what actually happened). That's why Forbes has been patiently explaining the difference.

It seems that everyone, including you, agrees that the problem is with the word "restricted", rather than the use of "being admitted". Given that we all understand there are some problems in the sentence, we would naturally compensate for this inaccurate use of language by making assumptions. If we assume the word "restricted" is used correctly, the conclusion is either that "being admitted" is wrong (which I think is very unlikely) or "people being admitted" are a pool of resources (which is absurd).

It is very easy to get into such situations when we try to translate an English sentence into predicate logic. Many of the things we say everyday are strictly speaking illogical when scrutinized by a logician. That's why there are critically thinking classes. Or perhaps, all of us are just silly, talking nonsense everyday. If we try to convert everything into predicate logic, I am afraid we have to throw away most of the Englsh literature that have ever been written.

To make the whole exercise fruitful, students in logic should not jump to the conclusion and apply what they learnt mechanically when converting sentences from one form to the other without even clarifying what the sentence actually means in the first place.

Pter

Re: Are these SIMPLE sentences?

Aous — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:33:11 GMT

Compound Sentence -- Two-part sentence. Both parts could be sentences on their own.

Each part of the sentence has a subject.
Each part of the sentence has a predicate.
Each part is called an independent clause.

That is:
Bob went to the store and Bob went to the postoffice. Is a compound
( I checked tens of reliable internet links, and they treat such sentences (Bob went to the store and went to the postoffice) as simple. Also that's what my teacher told me. He is a grammarian. Who shall I trust?)

You can do some googling, and you'll absolutely change your mind.

I don't agree. This is Grammar not literature. There is either black or white. One of us should convince the other.

Have a nice time
Again I'm looking forward to your answer
And here is a very big smile

Re: What's the logic behind this?

paco2004 — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 11:19:20 GMT

Hello MrP

Thank you for your compliment. But I need some literature material to prove my supposition.

By the way, don't you think English is extraordinary among European languages in that they put an indefinite article even to predicate nouns?
(English) He is a student.
(German) Er ist Student.
(French) Il est etudiant.
(Spanish) El es estudiante.

paco

âSuperlativisationâ or exaggeration in English Language

PaulNorton — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 18:40:49 GMT

On Saturday 31st January Paul was thinking to himself, as he normally does. He thought of what to do the next day. Suddenly he thought about how he was going to tackle the problem of âSuperlativisationâ or exaggeration in English language. People say âvery veryâ so that âveryâ has lost its meaning. And âyesâ has become âabsolutelyâ. This word absolutely should be used only occasionally.

People say a thing is âhugeâ when what they mean is âbigâ. They say âIt was very, very interestingâ when what they mean is âIt was interestingâ. The word âveryâ doesnât add anything to the meaning. The means of emphasis, according to Paulâs nephew James, no longer applies. Itâs like weâre at the mercy of the text messages which are flying around the world. Every child has a computer and they communicate by text messages with each other. But as the messages arenât actually spoken, because you canât speak by computer, in order to say something was delicious you canât just emphasise by stress of your voice so you have to engage in some form of exaggeration: âIt was very very delicious,â or something like that. My friend Cristina says that messaging on mobile phones has the same effect.

This problem exists not only in England but all over Europe. The culture and civilisation and language and literature of English, all the way from the beginnings through to Shakespeare down to the lesser writers like Paul, might be seriously damaged if Paul is right. In order to deal with what is an awful prospect, it is best to adopt the principle of Dunkirk. There was little chance of getting the British out of Dunkirk, but there was a tiny possibility that something might happen and the army could be saved. They went for this tiny possibility and it worked.

Paul knows a lot about English grammar. He taught at Stanton School of English. He also did Linguistics at Oxford; that meant reading Chomsky and Saussure. Personally he preferred the subject verb object theory to the subject predicate theory. He is also keen on modern English and knows that in modern English there exists âgonnaâ âgottaâ âwannaâ but there is no word âcannaâ.

All these text messages buzzing around the world have put holes in the language. This is why such a simple word as âyesâ becomes âabsolutelyâ.
Why should this happen? Why does even Paul feel a buzzing in his head and the temptation to say things wrongly? Why do even people like Carole Vorderman and Richard Whiteley, intelligent people who are conducting a word game show where the meaning of words is important, make such mistakes? They surely must know that what theyâre saying is wrong?

So Paul had this idea and on the Sunday he gave up the chance to read his poem at his Poetry Group and spoke about his theory instead. He got support from Simon and a few others.

On the Monday Paul decided to go for it, in the Dunkirk style. Even though severely disabled and with just a phone in front of him, he phoned the BBC and they kind of agreed with him. He then phoned Channel 4 and they kind of agreed with him too. He phoned ITV and they just listened.

On the Friday 6th February it seemed his words had had an effect. Paul couldnât believe it at first but when other people said it was working he began to believe it himself. Paul thinks it is important to preserve this beautiful language. Just one glance at the Oxford Dictionary will show you how beautiful it is. Why are we destroying the beauty of words by this needless exaggeration? By this exaggeration we lose the essence of what we are trying to say. If someone starts off with a big adjective like âmassiveâ or âhugeâ itâs impossible to get larger. Are we going to say âvery massiveâ maybe? Words have lost their meaning in all this. Language doesnât develop like this. Language becomes simpler over time not more complicated. This exaggeration is a trend that is alien to language. Why are we doing this? The only solution is through television because people may copy what television presenters say. We are all sheep, in a way. We like to talk like other people talk. Surely it is better we talk correctly rather than incorrectly as has been happening recently.

Paul has friends from other countries in Europe and outside Europe too. They are noticing the same thing as well in their own languages. Could two of the greatest inventions of recent times, the computer and the mobile phone, destroy civilisation? It seems kind of ironic. We therefore make a plea for people to follow what Paul is saying. We all contribute to this exaggeration and we can all do our part in getting rid of it.

From Paul Norton
Norton.Paul@gmail.com

Trinity isn't a Biblical teaching. It's heresy.

southafrica — Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:20:12 GMT

AT JOHN 1:1 the King James Version reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Trinitarians claim that this means that "the Word" (Greek, ho lo'gos) who came to earth as Jesus Christ was Almighty God himself.

Someone who is "with" another person cannot also be that other person

Note, however, that here again the context lays the groundwork for accurate understanding. Even the King James Version says, "The Word was with God." (Italics ours.) Someone who is "with" another person cannot be the same as that other person. In agreement with this, the Journal of Biblical Literature, edited by Jesuit Joseph A. Fitzmyer, notes that if the latter part of John 1:1 were interpreted to mean "the" God, this "would then contradict the preceding clause," which says that the Word was with God.

Notice, too, how other translations render this part of the verse:

1808: "and the word was a god." The New Testament in an Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome's New Translation: With a Corrected Text.

1864: "and a god was the word." The Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear reading, by Benjamin Wilson.

1928: "and the Word was a divine being." La Bible du Centenaire, L'Evangile selon Jean, by Maurice Goguel.

1935: "and the Word was divine." The BibleâAn American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed.

1946: "and of a divine kind was the Word." Das Neue Testament, by Ludwig Thimme.

1950: "and the Word was a god." New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

1958: "and the Word was a God." The New Testament, by James L. Tomanek.

1975: "and a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word." Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz.

1978: "and godlike kind was the Logos." Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Johannes Schneider.

At John 1:1 there are two occurrences of the Greek noun theÂ·os' (god). The first occurrence refers to Almighty God, with whom the Word was ("and the Word [lo'gos] was with God [a form of theÂ·os']"). This first theÂ·os' is preceded by the word ton (the), a form of the Greek definite article that points to a distinct identity, in this case Almighty God ("and the Word was with [the] God").

On the other hand, there is no article before the second theÂ·os' at John 1:1. So a literal translation would read, "and god was the Word." Yet we have seen that many translations render this second theÂ·os' (a predicate noun) as "divine," "godlike," or "a god." On what authority do they do this?

The Koine Greek language had a definite article ("the"), but it did not have an indefinite article ("a" or "an"). So when a predicate noun is not preceded by the definite article, it may be indefinite, depending on the context.

The Journal of Biblical Literature says that expressions "with an anarthrous [no article] predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning." As the Journal notes, this indicates that the lo'gos can be likened to a god. It also says of John 1:1: "The qualitative force of the predicate is so prominent that the noun [theÂ·os'] cannot be regarded as definite."

So John 1:1 highlights the quality of the Word, that he was "divine," "godlike," "a god," but not Almighty God. This harmonizes with the rest of the Bible, which shows that Jesus, here called "the Word" in his role as God's Spokesman, was an obedient subordinate sent to earth by his Superior, Almighty God.

There are many other Bible verses in which almost all translators in other languages consistently insert the article "a" when translating Greek sentences with the same structure. For example, at Mark 6:49, when the disciples saw Jesus walking on water, the King James Version says: "They supposed it had been a spirit." In the Koine Greek, there is no "a" before "spirit." But almost all translations in other languages add an "a" in order to make the rendering fit the context. In the same way, since John 1:1 shows that the Word was with God, he could not be God but was "a god," or "divine."

Joseph Henry Thayer, a theologian and scholar who worked on the American Standard Version, stated simply: "The Logos was divine, not the divine Being himself." And Jesuit John L. McKenzie wrote in his Dictionary of the Bible: "Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated . . . 'the word was a divine being.'"

Search results for 'tag:Predicates tag:Literature' matching tags 'Predicates' and 'Literature'

Re: Your interpretation on this statement.

Re: Are these SIMPLE sentences?

Re: What's the logic behind this?

âSuperlativisationâ or exaggeration in English Language

Trinity isn't a Biblical teaching. It's heresy.

âSuperlativisationâ or exaggeration in English Language