[lit-ideas] Re: "The African Language" (Was: Julie's Query)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 11:14:59 EDT
We are discussing if Julie was right in asking, "Do you know the African
language?". R. Paul, a logician, replied, "There's no such thing as _the_
African language; there are _African languages_." This struck me as a
nominalist
gambit.
M. Chase agrees:
>Granted the existence of "African languages",
>does this imply the existence of "the African
>language"? Surely not. For the use of *the* +
>the singular in English implies unicity.
I suppose it must be an 'implicature', rather than an 'implication' (note
that Chase freely uses 'imply', and 'implies'), for Julie was asking about
_the_
African language, when she possibly meant _any_ African language.
The logical form of a 'the' ascription was identified long ago by Russell
("The king of France is bald"). In a world where there is _no_ king of France,
the 'the' form and the 'the'-less form are equivalent ("Kings of France are
bald").
QED.
Cheers,
JL
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