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Copyright © 2009 Jud Evans. Permission granted
to distribute in any medium, commercial or
non-commercial, provided author attribution
and copyright notices remain intact.
PART ONE
COMPELLING EVIDENCE OF THE NON-COPULATORITY
OF /BE/
There is no more suspect definitional cop-out
in the history of linguistics than the notorious
description of the so-called copuletic variant
of the indicant *is* ( and its conjugates)
as a special kind of verb to join two parts
of a sentence and to express either that
the two parts denote the same thing or that
the first has the property denoted by the
second. This definition manqué is mirrored
by the failed attempts of various philosophers
to puzzle out the ontological purpose and
effects of such a definition (among them
Aquinas and Heidegger) who threw up their
hands in despair following their unproductive
efforts to understand the linguistic operation
involved. One curious and maybe significant
piece of verified information about so-called
*copular verbs* is that they are followed
by adjectives - not adverbs.
EVIDENTIAL ITEM ONE.
Adjectives Only After Copular Verbs.
More light is thrown upon this historic definitional
cock-up by examining the other so-called
common *copula verbs:* seem, look, turn, become, appear, sound,
smell, taste, feel and get in relation to the adjectivality with which
they are uniquely associated. Now such a
fact is of great importance, for if copula
verbs are syntactically confined to indicating
adjectival predication which DESCRIBES a
subject - then this means that they are concerned
with a restrictive function which confines
them to pointing only to representations
of THE WAY, MANNER OR MODE of existing subjects
and NOT the FACT that they exist as a way
of introducing or acknowledging their simple
existence or presence in the world
Because theological and transcendental proofs
rely on the assumption that *is* is a viable
verb which is completely meaningful by itself,
this new discovery, highlighting as it does
the give-away adjectival connection, surely
puts in jeopardy and exposes the distorted
religious version of this rule, where, in
an effort to evade, conceal, cover-up and
obfuscate the logico-linguistic significance
of the dianoetic consistency of the rule,
aberrant forms like *God is* and other examples
of the orphanic *is* are employed.
Other embarrassing adjectiveless descriptive
predication is also cynically elided in the
hope that the covert descriptive predication
*filled-in* or completed by the believer,
replete with the necessary and mandatory
adjectival content inherent in any employment
of a copula, will not clash with the crude
existential claim of *pure existence* and
that the subsequent illogicality of the claim
that God exists will go unnoticed.
Thus is the predicational and ontological
guilt off-loaded onto the naive believer
leaving the clergy and philosophers like
Heidegger with what they have formerly believed
to have had - hands and consciences clean
of the sin or ignorance, gross illogicality
and communicative vandalism.
EVIDENTIAL ITEM TWO.
Observer Modalities Disguised as Modalities
of the Observed.
One further curious fact leaps off the page
the minute one examines the so-called *group
of copulas* and that is that the words adjectivally
describe not the existential state of the
subject - but rather that they also provide
an example of the existential state of the
observer, commentator, or the author of such
descriptive sentences, who attempt to characterise
the subject. This means that the classical
claim of copularity by the tradition that:
*the two parts denote the same thing, or
that the first has the property denoted by
the second* is utter rubbish. Some explanatory
examples:
1. *She seems happy.* This is obviously an
existential modality of the observer - not
the observed, for here a judgement is being
made by the commentator or *in the eye of
the beholder* that the subject is seemingly
happy not in the eye of the beheld. The beheld
is either happy or unhappy. (*Seem* is a
copular verb.)
2. *The stew smells good.* Here again the
fact that the stew smells good is an existential
mode of the smeller - not the smelled. (*Smell*
is a copular verb.)
3. *It is getting late.* It is obvious here
that *time* is getting late for the existential
modality of the utterer of this statement
- it is not *getting late* for time itself.*
(*Get* is a copular verb.)
4. *Marjorie is my girlfriend.* The nominalisations
*Marjorie* and girlfriend* are attribution
of identity assigned by one set of humans
to another, therefore the attributing of
such labels is again an existential mode
of the attributing boyfriend - not Marjorie
his girlfriend. (*is* is a copular verb.)
5. *Jack is British.* This sentence is an
assertion regarding the attribution of the
existential modality of *Britishness* to
Jack. As such it is an assertive existential
modality of the attributor - not the attributant.
(*is* is a copular verb.)
6. *Marjorie looks intelligent.* Intelligent
is an adjective in predicative position.
It is an existential modality of the opinion
of the observer - not the person herself.
(*Look* is a copular verb.)
PART TWO
THE MISREPRESENTATION OF *IS* AS A CLASSIFICATORY
NODE OF PREDICATION
Abstract. This paper rejects the doctrine
that In the English language /be/ is a verb
that has several distinct functions in addition
to confirming the number, past, present or
durative distinctions of time in relation
to the subject. Unlike the word *exists,*
which operates as a means of distinguishing
ontological fact from fiction, reality from
both illusion and hallucination and denotes
that spatial and temporal considerations
are applicable, /be/ acts as a mute, empty
deictic pointer to indicate the predicate
being no more than a lexical arrow bereft
of any predicational content whatsoever.
The Predicational Misrepresentation of IS.
I refuse to accept the belief that the word
*is* contains determinants of the predicate
which inhere within it as a form of connotative
nominal, adjectival, verbal, locative and
existential semantic content as expressed
in the following standard examples:
Is of Identity noun is noun The cat is an
animal Is of Predication noun is adjective
The cat is furry Is of Continuity noun is
verb The cat is sleeping Is of Location noun
is place The cat is on the mat Is of Existence
is noun There is a cat
I assert that in the above examples the *is*
an unchanging inarticulate symbol and it
is wrongful to identify the copula as a semantic
node upon which to hang the classifications
of the variant predicational types, for it
is the existential modalities which furnish
the predicative stereotypes ? not the neutral
deictic indicant device that points to such
modification.
I am satisfied that the classical, Fregean
and Russellian identification of *is* as
the semantic node upon which sentences are
classified into types of predicates is both
a misrepresentation of the sentential role
of *is* (be) and at the same time wrongfully
identifies the indicant *is* as a classificatory
element or node involved in the descriptive
indexing of differential forms of sentential
predication.
Frege My criticism of Frege lies not so much
with his system of truth-functional connectives,
but rather in his misplaced choice and appointment
of the indicant *is* to function as an associative
focus or classificatory node by which predicate
types are described. Such recursive associative
characterisation of the indicant *is* by
the attribution of predicational descriptive
functions such as: THE IS OF PREDICATION,
THE IS OF CONTINUITY, THE IS OF EXISTENCE,
THE IS OF LOCATION AND THE IS OF IDENTITY,
is a misrepresentation.
For much of the tradition simple identity
statements like: *John is Betty's father,*
and supposedly puzzling examples like: *
the morning star is identical to the evening
star,* in which the descriptions the morning
star and the evening star denote the same
planet, namely Venus, but express different
ways of conceiving of Venus and so have different
senses, are explained as being *is of identity
statements* not by analysing what the predicate
describes, but by gratuitously dubbing the
innocent *is* as *the is of identity, when
*is* is simply pointing to the predicate
in the same way it does with any form of
predicate.
As with: *Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens.*
etc., the implication is that for some reason
the fact that the indicant *is* happens to
appear in such a sentence, it has automatically
been infused with some mysterious essence
of meaning (Bedeutung) which empowers it
to impart or endow the morning star and the
evening star and Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens
with the existential modality of identicalness.
In all such identity statements the indicant
*is* (which remains in its symbolic morphological
form confirming the number and tense of the
subject WHATEVER type of predication takes
place in the sentence, is magically invested
and dubbed by Frege and others as: *The *is*
of identity.* As Vilkko and Hintikka have
observed:
One of the characteristic features of contemporary
logic is that it incorporates the Frege-Russell
thesis according to which verbs for being
are multiply-ambiguous. This thesis was not
accepted before the nineteenth century. In
Aristotle existence could not serve alone
as a predicate term. However, it could be
a part of the force of the predicate term,
depending on the context. For Kant existence
could not even be a part of the force of
the predicate term. Hence, after Kant, existence
was left homeless. It found a home in the
algebra of logic in which the operators corresponding
to universal and particular judgments were
treated as duals, and universal judgments
were taken to be relative to some universe
of discourse. Because of the duality, existential
quantifier expressions came to express existence.
The orphaned notion of existence thus found
a new home in the existential quantifier.
[1] (Vilkko and Hintikka. abstract.)
I further assert that this mistaken interpretation
of *is* has wrought a profoundly malignant
effect on all aspects of human discourse,
both in the sciences and in the arts. To
include the copula *is* (including its conjugates)
as a part of the predicate is a cardinal
error - for the symbol *is* does not influence
the predicate in any way whatsoever.
Whether such predication describes an area
of sea as being inhabited by whales, or whether
it is predicatively reported that black swans
exist in Australia, or the cat is black,
or the cat is called tiddles, or the morning
star is the evening star - all such varieties
of descriptive predication have nothing at
all to do with the vacuous, non-predicative,
arrow-dressed-as-a-word: *is.*
Historically, the blame for the infusion
of such ontological travesties must be laid
firmly at the door of religion, and transcendentalism,
for theological and transcendental proofs
rely on the assumption that *is* is a viable
verb which is completely meaningful by itself,
which, even when bereft of any supplementary
meaning provided by a predicate concept can
be employed to generate ontological outlandishness
like the predicational truncation: *God is.*
The Basics. In reading a sentence there is
first the sentential subject name and with
it the sense of the name as a conscious general
awareness formed from the accessed memorised
information stored in the brain. Thus confronted
with a sentence beginning: *my father* the
concept of what constitutes a *father* and
what *fatherhood* implies together with a
notion of the class of things that have this
exist in this modality is conceptually instantiated
in the mind of the reader.
Such a conceptual instantiation can be described
as a private, internal, de facto creation
of a covert, unique, descriptive predicate
formed in the mind of the reader even before
the eye reaches the sentential predicate
and exposed to the usually more restrictive
and focussed form of predication which describes
selected aspects of the existential modality
of the father referred to in the narrative.
Thus the reader himself decides whether the
subject is justified in being conceptual
instantiated purely as an abstract idea or
conceptualised as an entity capable of ideational
existentialisation. The effect of this is
to render any claim that *is* acts as an
existential instantiator utterly redundant.
So sentential predicates differ fundamentally
from general default privately cached template-predicates,
both in the specificity of their focusing
on one descriptive existential domain (*the
cat is black,* or *my father is a bus-conductor*
or Jack is Jean's uncle ) and also by virtue
of the multiplicity of possible variables
inherent in the plethora of predicational
extensions.
The observance that sentences consist of
a subject and a predicate can be traced back
to Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Historically
the Aristotelian term predicate had the sense
of consisting of what remains of a sentential
or clausal string when its subject is removed.
Metaphorically in this filleted Aristotelian
version of predication, the predicate is
defined as what is left of the eel-like sentence
after the subject (head) has been removed.
In this sense the subject is separate from
the Aristotelian predicate and combines with
it independently of what propositional semantic
significations may come its way regarding
what may be claimed of it - or attributed
to it.
Descriptively, for the purposes of parsing,
the subject is independent of the Aristotelian
predicate (of which there are countless possible
variations) with which it combines independently
of semantic considerations.
Unfortunately for ontology Frege wrongfully
recognised be as a verb and included be and
its conjugates as members of his elect band
of lexical licentiates.
1. a subject + 2. what is licensed by *is
* 3. to be predicationally said of that subject
For Frege, Aristotle? s simple put-and-take-subject
and predicational leftover type of analysis
is too simplistic, and is no more that a
basic division of a latently more sophisticated
series of syntactical divergency. For Frege,
not only can we strip away the subject leaving
the Aristotelian predicate, it is also possible
to go further and disinvest more predicative
arguments from the Aristotelian predicate
until one is left with a single lexical item,
the core Fregean predicate. But although
Frege? s conceptual notation includes an
radical revaluation of the grammatical role
of the indicant (copula) he unwisely continued
to accept and define *exist* and *there are*
as natural language intransitive verbs.
A heightened understanding of exists or is
has radical consequences for philosophical
issues involving the existence of individual
objects or classes of objects, and it is
equally consequential for attempts at theological
proofs that assume that is acts as a verb
is and completely meaningful by itself, bereft
of any supplementary meaning provided by
a predicate concept in curious formations
like *God is.* or *The Mountains of Mourne
are.*
Aristotelian predicates are recursive categories.
Fregean predicates, on the other hand, recursively
endow the copula to incorporate the catorgorised
semantic nuances of the predicate.
Bertrand Russell.
Russell writing of Hegel? s confusions in
1914 wrote:
Hegel's argument in this portion his Logic
depends throughout upon confusing the is
of predication, as in Socrates is mortal
, with the is of identity, as in Socrates
is the philosopher who drank the hemlock
. Owing to this confusion, he thinks that
Socrates and mortal must be identical. Seeing
that they are different, he does not infer,
as others would, that there is a mistake
somewhere, but that they exhibit identity
in difference. Again, Socrates is particular,
mortal is universal. Therefore, he says,
since Socrates is mortal, it follows that
the particular is the universal-- taking
the is to be throughout expressive of identity.
But to say the particular is the universal
. [2] (Russell. 1914. p. 42)
Sadly, although Russell rightly identifies
Hegel's mistake, he himself errs by referring
to *is* as being capable of being expressive
of anything other than (as copulas do) the
agreement involved in confirming Plato's
singularity and anchoring the supposed contemporaneity
of the sentence as *is* rather than *was.*
My position is that neither Hegel nor Russell
realised that it is the PREDICATION which
changes and should be classified into various
descriptive types - NOT the copula.
*IS* does not (in its vacuous self) signal
anything at all - it just points:
The tree + *is* ? indicates -- predicate.
WHATEVER Predicate Type is involved.
1. *The tree (indicator-is) -- fill in desired
predicate.
2. *The tree (indicator-is) -- in the garden.
3. *The tree (indicator-is) -- standing in
the garden.
4. *The tree (indicator-is -- known as: *Robin's
Oak.*
5. *The tree (indicator-is) -- in the far
corner of the field. Apart from changing
its form to accommodate the number and tense
of the subject (*is* to *are* etc) The copular
(indicant) *is* (in all conjugal forms) remains
EXACTLY the same
Conclusion. So with reference to the classical
mistake of inauthentically classifying predicates
by transmitting the nature of the predicational
modality back to the copula, thereby associating
and attributing mystic modes of identity,
location and existence and other imperatival
of modality to *is* contrary to what is the
ontological and semantic case, surely it
is time that we set about classifying the
predicates themselves. I end by leaving Prof.
Jack Kaminsky of the State University of
New York to comment on the need for an more
organised form of predicational classification:
But what does suggest itself here is that
perhaps some very obvious fact about predicates
has been overlooked, namely, that technically
we have no right to speak of predicates unless
we have some way of categorizing these predicates.
[4] ( Kaminsky. 1969. p. 203)
References: [1] Vilkko. Risto and Hintikka. Jaakko
. Existence and Predication from Aristotle
to Frege. University of Helsinki. Boston
University. [2] Russell, Bertrand. Our Knowledge
of the External World, George Allen and Unwin
Ltd., 1914; Fifth Impression, 1969, p. 42.
[3] Kaminsky. Jack. Language and Ontology.
Southern Ilinois University Press. 1969.
Athenaeum Library.
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