From W.V. Quine Word and Object Section 23 “Relative Clauses. Indefinite Singular Terms”, cited in Partee (1975):

“At any rate the peculiar genius of the relative clause is that it creates from a sentence ‘…x…’ a complex adjective summing up what that sentence says about x. Sometimes the same effect could be got by dropping ‘x is’, as in the last example, or by other expedients; thus in the case of ‘I bought x’, ‘bought by me’ (formed by conversion and application) would serve as well as the relative clause ‘which I bought’. But often, as in the case of ‘the bell tolls for x’, the relative clause is the most concise adjective available for the purpose.”

“The ’such that’ construction is thus more flexible than the ‘which’ construction. But what is more striking is the power and flexibility of either of these constructions as contrasted with the earlier or ‘algebraic’ ways of deriving general terms: such operations as attributive juxtaposition, application of relative terms, conversion to passive voice, derelativization (’brother’ from ‘brother of’), and the joining of terms by ‘and’ and ‘or’. It is not obvious that any preassigned finite set of algebraic operations could suffice for the work of all relative clauses; though actually Schönfinkel’s work, which marked the inception of combinatory logic, may be said to establish an affirmative answer to that question.”

emma :: May.18.2007 :: misc, semantics, philosophy, linguistics :: No Comments »