/lectures /logic
22 November, 1963 Nightmare on Elm Street
?
What the fuck?
I mean, er.. what the fucking fuck?
We are young men and women of high spirit and noble ideals. We are philosophers, interested in the semantics of English ‘if’. What in God’s name are we doing in this dreadful place?
Oswald Sentences [A] If Oswald didn’t shoot Kennedy, then somebody else did. [B] If Oswald doesn’t shoot Kennedy, then somebody else will. [C] If Oswald hadn’t shot Kennedy, then somebody else would have.
The scientific study of: English Grammar
Miss Anne Widdecombe
Miss Anne Widdecombe at the Conservative Party Conference
Miss Anne Widdecombe with her first boyfriend
Miss Anne Widdecombe being prepared for Room 101
"Schoolchildren are no longer drilled in the proper use of the infinitive. They are no longer trained in the correct deployment of the subjunctive mood. Nor have they been schooled to identify the vast array of English tenses - the perfect, the imperfect, the pluperfect, the future perfect...."
A Counterblast English has NO infinitive English has NO moods – neither indicative nor subjunctive nor any other English has but TWO tenses – present and past
" Space... the final frontier... These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five- year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before...".
to boldly go
boldly to go
to go boldly
to boldly go
M I S S
Madness! Ignorance! Stupidity! Snobbery!
ire audacter aller courageusement avanzare con coraggio andar intrépidamente sattwena gantum tapfer zu gehen
Latin: verb stem + infinitive ending One word
English: Particle (‘to’) + verb base Two separate words
Ambiguity
We must have the worst JCR food in Oxford
That dart might have landed in baby’s eye
If she misses the last bus, the Countess will walk
If she missed the last bus, the Countess would walk
Sentence vs. Message
Truth is not a property of Sentences
Truth is not a property of Sentences
Truth is not a property of Sentences
Truth is a property of Messages
Message determines Sentence