Comments on: If you’re Lance Armstrong, … http://semantics-online.org/2004/04/if-youre-lance-armstrong A weblog on semantics, pragmatics, philosophy of language, and intersections thereof Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:23:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 By: Thony Gillies http://semantics-online.org/2004/04/if-youre-lance-armstrong#comment-92 Thony Gillies Mon, 19 Apr 2004 20:31:17 +0000 http://semantics-online.org/2004/04/if-youre-lance-armstrong#comment-92 <p>I love "sportscasting conditionals", of which the Hubie Brown sort is a special case. They seem to be counterfactuals expressed by conditionals which are unflinchingly indicative in mood. I heard this one two days ago: Kerry Wood was pitching for the Cubs; top of the 9th; 1 run game. Several very close pitches were called balls instead of (what would have been) strike three. Runs scored, Kerry was pulled. On his way out, he charged the umpire and was summarily ejected; the Cubs lost. I heard this conditional in the postgame: "If [umpire's name] calls those strikes, Kerry stays in the game and the Cubs probably win this game."</p> <p>One hears the same sort of construction on the other side of the pond as well. [After seeing a poor touch by Beckham]: "If Beckham plays that well, Real Madrid score for sure."</p> I love “sportscasting conditionals”, of which the Hubie Brown sort is a special case. They seem to be counterfactuals expressed by conditionals which are unflinchingly indicative in mood. I heard this one two days ago: Kerry Wood was pitching for the Cubs; top of the 9th; 1 run game. Several very close pitches were called balls instead of (what would have been) strike three. Runs scored, Kerry was pulled. On his way out, he charged the umpire and was summarily ejected; the Cubs lost. I heard this conditional in the postgame: “If [umpire’s name] calls those strikes, Kerry stays in the game and the Cubs probably win this game.”

One hears the same sort of construction on the other side of the pond as well. [After seeing a poor touch by Beckham]: “If Beckham plays that well, Real Madrid score for sure.”

]]> By: Tony Marmo http://semantics-online.org/2004/04/if-youre-lance-armstrong#comment-91 Tony Marmo Mon, 19 Apr 2004 18:24:01 +0000 http://semantics-online.org/2004/04/if-youre-lance-armstrong#comment-91 <p>Thank you very much for giving an extra problem for the paper on opacity I am working on. Now I am almost back to zero, but I shall give some of my thoughts and reactions:</p> <p>A large amount of the works on attitudes are devoted to the use of Tense, as everyone here knows. The sentence in the Present Tense is odd in Portuguese. In such cases you need the Subjunctive Past and the Conditional to make it ok:</p> <p>(1) Se você fosse o Lance Armstrong, por que precisaria ir ao Tour de France?</p> <p>It is interesting because both Tenses mark the non-actual character of both propositions. Interesting but not unusual in human languages.</p> <p>Now, what seems to be the real issue is the Brigite Bardot sentence, if you reject opacity in terms of opacity to Leibniz' Law and adopt world accessibility in its stead. We have something that in spite of (2) we get (3), but (4) still keeps both persons as different beings:</p> <p>(2) Me? Brigite Bardot. (3) I dreamed that (Me= Brigite Bardot) (4) I dreamed that I kisse me. |= (2)</p> <p>I guess that if you say:</p> <p>(5) I dreamed that I was BB and I kissed myself.</p> <p>Some people would ask whether it was BB that kissed herself in your dream, or it was you kissing yourself.</p> <p>We go back to the old Venus and the morning star examples. Still, contrarily to the Fregean tradition, it is possible to infer (8) from (6) and (7):</p> <p>(6) Superman can fly. (7) Clark Kent is Superman. (8) Clark Kent believes he can fly.</p> Thank you very much for giving an extra problem for
the paper on opacity I am working on. Now I am almost
back to zero, but I shall give some of my thoughts
and reactions:

A large amount of the works on attitudes are devoted to
the use of Tense, as everyone here knows.
The sentence in the Present Tense is odd in Portuguese.
In such cases you need the Subjunctive Past and the
Conditional to make it ok:

(1) Se você fosse o Lance Armstrong, por que precisaria ir
ao Tour de France?

It is interesting because both Tenses mark the non-actual
character of both propositions. Interesting but not unusual
in human languages.

Now, what seems to be the real issue is the Brigite Bardot
sentence, if you reject opacity in terms of opacity to
Leibniz’ Law and adopt world accessibility in its stead.
We have something that in spite of (2) we get (3), but
(4) still keeps both persons as different beings:

(2) Me? Brigite Bardot.
(3) I dreamed that (Me= Brigite Bardot)
(4) I dreamed that I kisse me. |= (2)

I guess that if you say:

(5) I dreamed that I was BB and I kissed myself.

Some people would ask whether it was BB that kissed
herself in your dream, or it was you kissing yourself.

We go back to the old Venus and the morning star
examples. Still, contrarily to the Fregean tradition,
it is possible to infer (8) from (6) and (7):

(6) Superman can fly.
(7) Clark Kent is Superman.
(8) Clark Kent believes he can fly.

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