[lit-ideas] Re: Why Is Academic Writing So Academic?
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:28:08 -0500 (EST)
Is there a logic to 'so'?
----
In a message dated 2/26/2014 1:10:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"In "Homage" to 'so'
since we are considering the variance:
i. Why Is Academic Writing So Academic?
versus the properly tautologous
ii. Why is Academic Writing Academic?
The second question invites the obvious reply: "If academic writing were
NOT academic, it would not be academic; in other words: academic writing HAS
TO BE academic".
With 'so', the implicatures vary.
Cfr.
"Why do you have to be so intelligent?"
differs from
"Why do you have to be intelligent?"
It may be argued that 'so' is "pleonetetic", and involving or entailing a
threshold.
In this respect, 'so' compares to 'enough' or 'too much'.
iii. Why is Academic Writing Too Academic?
sounds odd, but the indicative version mitigates the oddness:
iv. Academic writing is TOO academic.
Cfr. the harmless:
v. Academic writing is MUCH academic.
"How much?"
Too much. Hence the 'so'.
----
Or not.
It should be pointed out, as Omar K. notes, that whatever the implicature,
the poser of the question is looking for an answer, which SHOULD not be
tautologous. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
---------------------------------------------
ps. The words
"every", "any", and "none"
can be qualified by certain adverbs, so that we may say, for instance,
"nearly every", "scarcely any", and "almost none".
Cf.:
Academic writing is scarcely academic.
Consider
1. Amost every man owns a car.
This is logically equivalent to
2. Few men do not own a car.
which in turn is equivalent to
3. Not many men do not own a car.
Cfr.
Academic writing is little academic.
--
There is, indeed, a pretty close correspondence between two sets of words
as
follows:
always ever often seldom sometimes never
every any many few some none
where the terms in the upper line interrelate in the same way as do those
on
the lower, e.g.
4. I have a few books.
is equivalent to
5. I do not have many books.
Similarly,
6. I seldom go to London.
is equivalent to
7. I do not often go to London.
Further quantifiers are discernible in English, unless the eyes deceives
one. As well as "few", "many", and "nearly all", we have
"very few", "very many", and "very nearly all",
and yet more result from reiterated prefixing of "very".
---
Cfr.
Academic writing is VERY academic.
---
Versus:
Academic writing is not academic enough.
---
(Implicature: Academic writing is OVER-academic?)
In their representation in a formal syntax, all the foregoing expressions
coume out as what I call
(I,I)-quantifiers
i.e. quantifiers which bind one variable in one formula.
A formal syntax, together with appropriate semantics, which gives an
appropriate treatment to all these is a significant generalisation of
classical quantificational methods on the pattern of ordinary logic.
The further generalisation to
(I, k)-quantifiers
- binding one variable in an ordered k-triple of formulae, gives a further
increase in power. Thus, consider
8. There are exactly as many Apostles as there are days of Xmas.
We have here a (1,2)-quantifier. It seems significant that we can build up
additional quanitifers in much the same way as we can (1,1)-quantifiers.
For instance, from
"more than"
we can to to
"many more than"
and
"very many more than".
We have such expressions as
"nearly as many as" and "almost as few as",
and so on. As to their truth-conditional semantics, one thing that is clear
about the truth conditions of
9. There are many As.
is that
10. It is not the case that there is only one A.
It also seems that, in general, how many As there need to be for there to
be
"many As" depends on the size of the envisaged domain of discourse. E.g. in
11. There are many communists in this constituency.
the domain of discourse would probably be the electorate of the
constituency
in question. This domain is smaller than the one envisaged in
12. There are many communists in England.
and consequently the number of communist there have to be for there to be
many communists in this constituency is smaller than the number there have
to be for there to be many communists in England.
This suggests the use of a numerical method in providing the appropriate
truth-conditional semantics, by selecting a number
"n"
which is
the LEAST number of things
there have to be with a certain property A for there to be "many" things
with that property, an important constraint being, of course, that
n > 1.
Now, "n" varies with the domain of discourse, and its value relative to
numbers associated with other quantifiers should be correct.
Thus, the
quantifier
"a few"
is given a truth-conditional semantics in a way similar to those for
"many", in terms of
the LEAST number of things
that must have some property if there are to be "a few" things with that
property.
Cfr.:
"Academic writing has few features that can be called academic".
Versus:
"Academic writing has too many features -- way too many -- more than
enough, actually -- that can be called academic."
If such numbers are termed
THRESHOLD-NUMBERS,
the essential condition is that the threshold-number associated with "a
few"
should be smaller than that associated with "many". This method can be used
also in the case of the quantifiers compounded with "very". Thus, the
threshold-number associated with
"very many"
will be
n + m,
with m positive, if n is the threshold-number for "many".
Academic writing has very many features that can be called academic.
Of the other hand,
if "k" is the threshold for
"a few",
the threshold for "a very few" will be
k - l.
Repetitions of "very" can be coped with similarly, and, also, the
multiplicity of threshold-numbers is reduced by the possibility of defining
some quantifiers in terms of others.
Thus "nearly all" is "not many not").
Now consider
13. Thre are many things which are both A & B.
This is one in which the quantifier is not "sortal", as I call it, and is
logically equivalent to
14. There are many things which are both B & A.
In contrast,
15. Many As are Bs.
involves a queer "sortal quantifier", and is not equivalent to
16. Many As are Bs.
In (15), the quantifier's range is restricted to the set of As: thus the
set
of As becomes the domain of discourse whose size determines an appropriate
threshold number.
Consequently, since the set of As may NOT have even nearly the same
cardinal number as the set of Bs, the threshold-number determined by one may be
different from that determined by the other, as in 17 vs. 18:
17. Many specialists in Old Norse are university officers.
18. Many university officers are specialists in Old Norse.
It seems that (17) is true and (18) false: there are "more" university
officers than specialists in Old Norse, the threshold-number for "many
university officers" is correspondingly larger than that for "many
specialists in Old Norse".
Or consider the conditional,
19. If many professional men own French motorcars, and
there are at least as many professional men as owners
of French motorcars, many owners of French motorcars
are professional men.
Now, take a segment of (19), viz.
20. There are at least as many professional men as owners
of French motorcars.
How do we represent that formally? I suggest this be done by the what I
call
(I,k)-quantifiers.
and involves the application of a method which enables sortal quantifiers
to
be replaced by more complex quantifiers which are *not* sortal. Thus, it is
clear that the sortal
21. Most As are Bs.
is logically equivalent to
22. There are more things which are both A and B
than there are things which are A and not B.
which involves a non-sortal (1,2)-quantifier. Similarly we may think that
23. Many As are B if not far from half the As are B.
In this case, we could give, as logically equivalent to (17)
24. There are at least nearly as many specialists in Old Norse
who are university officers as there are specialists in
Old Norse who are not university officers.
where (24) is not sortal. This transcription renders patent the lack of
equivalence between (17) and (18) above, for, as anyone can see, (18)
emerges as
25. There are at lest nearly as many university officers
who are specialists in old Norse as there are university
officers who are not specialists in Old Norse.
Or not.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
