Issue 9715: Definition of 'proposition' (sbvr-ftf) Source: NIST (Mr. Edward J. Barkmeyer, edbark(at)nist.gov) Nature: Enhancement Severity: Minor Summary: Doc: dtc/06-03-02 Date: March 2006 Version: Interim Convenience Document Chapter: 8.1.2 Pages: 18 Nature: Editorial Severity: minor Description: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is *asserted* when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it *is* true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("WHEN it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Resolution: A proposition is a meaning; a sentence is an expression of a meaning. The same sentence, however, can express more than one meaning, e.g., when stated by different persons at different times, or in different contexts of reference. So it is important to separate the proposition from its expression, and not to define 'proposition' in terms of sentences. In terms of kinds of meaning, a proposition is distinguished from a concept by having a characteristic that is a "truth value" - true or false. The referent of a proposition is a conceptual/potential state of affairs that may or may not be an actual state of affairs. Issue 10621 deals with questions and their relationships to other kinds of meaning, including propositions. Revised Text: In clause 8.1.2, in the entry for proposition, REMOVE the Definition: Definition: meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false and REPLACE it with: Definition: meaning that is true or false Note: Every meaning that is true or is false is a proposition. That is, a proposition is a meaning that has a truth value. Note: A proposition corresponds to a state of affairs in a possible world defined by a collection of things of interest and possibly a time frame. The same proposition can be true in one possible world and false in another. (The Note that follows the existing Definition remains.) Actions taken: May 11, 2006: received issue January 15, 2008: closed issue Discussion: More basic Issues had to be resolved first, and we ran out of time End of Annotations:===== te: Thu, 11 May 2006 19:04:52 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: issues@omg.org Subject: SBVR Issue - Definition of 'proposition' X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No Name: Definition of 'proposition' Doc: dtc/06-03-02 Date: March 2006 Version: Interim Convenience Document Chapter: 8.1.2 Pages: 18 Nature: Editorial Severity: minor Description: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is *asserted* when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it *is* true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("WHEN it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4482 Subject: RE: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 14:06:59 -0700 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Thread-Index: AcZ19DvVmNEX6DJaSb2pdcPptHXY8wAEttdA From: "Baisley, Donald E" To: , "Terry Halpin" X-OriginalArrivalTime: 12 May 2006 21:07:00.0234 (UTC) FILETIME=[029DA6A0:01C67608] Ed.s recommendation to change the definition of .proposition. is fine with me. I am also OK with simplifying the definition to .meaning of a declarative sentence.. Ed.s recommended change to the definition of .question. is also fine with me: .meaning of an interrogative sentence.. I believe Terry was involved in the original definition of .proposition., so I would like to know what he thinks. Regards, Don -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 11:44 AM To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-ftf@omg.org Subject: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue This is issue # 9715 From: Ed Barkmeyer Definition of 'proposition' Doc: dtc/06-03-02 Date: March 2006 Version: Interim Convenience Document Chapter: 8.1.2 Pages: 18 Nature: Editorial Severity: minor Description: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is *asserted* when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it *is* true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("WHEN it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick St Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA tel: +1 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: +1 781 444 0320 email: juergen@omg.org www.omg.org Subject: RE: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 15:33:20 -0600 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Thread-Index: AcZ2B9rDRxGDBQRSQfSpjyHnV8C7ewAAQ9CQ From: "Terry Halpin" To: "Baisley, Donald E" , I don.t agree with Ed.s recommendation, and would prefer the definition of proposition to stay unchanged. Here is why. (1) Although I take propositions to be timeless (they never change their truth value), the meaning of a sentence may depend on the context of its utterance or inscription (including who stated it, when they did so, and possibly where they did so). For example, the sentence .Today is Friday. may be used to assert different propositions depending on when it is said (it is time-deictic). If I say it now, I utter a true proposition, but if I utter the same sentence tomorrow, I utter a different (and false proposition). So it is not enough to define proposition as .meaning of a declarative sentence. because the same sentence can have many different meanings (unlike propositions). (2) I prefer to include the claim that propositions are true or false, so that we are firmly grounded in 2-valued logic as regards propositions being truth-value bearers. This of course still allows n-valued logics to discuss one.s knowledge state with respect to propositions. (3) I deliberately excluded the term .declarative. to cater for the commonly held view in communication act theory that treats communication acts as containing a propositional component plus some illocutionary force (e.g. interrogative, command, request, etc.). I feel much more strongly about point (1) than the other points. Cheers Terry -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Baisley, Donald E [mailto:Donald.Baisley@unisys.com] Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 3:07 PM To: sbvr-ftf@omg.org; Terry Halpin Subject: RE: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Ed.s recommendation to change the definition of .proposition. is fine with me. I am also OK with simplifying the definition to .meaning of a declarative sentence.. Ed.s recommended change to the definition of .question. is also fine with me: .meaning of an interrogative sentence.. I believe Terry was involved in the original definition of .proposition., so I would like to know what he thinks. Regards, Don -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 11:44 AM To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-ftf@omg.org Subject: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue This is issue # 9715 From: Ed Barkmeyer Definition of 'proposition' Doc: dtc/06-03-02 Date: March 2006 Version: Interim Convenience Document Chapter: 8.1.2 Pages: 18 Nature: Editorial Severity: minor Description: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is *asserted* when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it *is* true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("WHEN it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick St Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA tel: +1 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: +1 781 444 0320 email: juergen@omg.org www.omg.org Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 20:06:19 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: Terry Halpin CC: sbvr-ftf@omg.org Subject: Re: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No I should say first that I don't feel strongly about this issue. I was struck by the curious terminology of the definition: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" My MW says: "2a An expression in language or signs of something that can be believed, doubted, or denied, or is either true or false 2b The objective meaning of such an expression." From Terry's contribution, I perceive that the intent of the definition was - to choose 2b -- the meaning, not the expression, and - to restrict the term to meanings that are either true or false I don't have any problem with either of those. The problem I had was tying the term proposition to "assertion", "uttered" and "when". To me an assertion is a claim that a proposition is true. So I am concerned about having the meaning of a false proposition depend on its assertion. An expression can be thought of as timeless -- once created, it exists. But "when the expression is uttered" ties the meaning of each 'proposition' to a point in time. Terry Halpin wrote: (1) Although I take propositions to be timeless (they never change their truth value), the meaning of a sentence may depend on the context of its utterance or inscription (including who stated it, when they did so, and possibly where they did so). Absolutely. So, for a proposition to be timeless, that context must become part of the proposition (the meaning), and a proper expression of that meaning must include that context. But this is only true of some propositions, not all propositions. That is why I want to stay away from words like "when it is uttered". A proper expression of meaning captures the when-ness if it makes a difference, and not if it doesn't. For example, the sentence "Today is Friday" may be used to assert different propositions depending on when it is said (it is time-deictic). If I say it now, I utter a true proposition, but if I utter the same sentence tomorrow, I utter a different (and false proposition). So it is not enough to define proposition as "meaning of a declarative sentence" because the same sentence can have many different meanings (unlike propositions). I can accept that. "proposition" means the structured meaning that is expressed by a sentence AFTER you get past issues of surface syntax and the presumed context of interpretation. (2) I prefer to include the claim that propositions are true or false, so that we are firmly grounded in 2-valued logic as regards propositions being truth-value bearers. This of course still allows n-valued logics to discuss one's knowledge state with respect to propositions. There may be other landmines here, but I can go along with this. (3) I deliberately excluded the term "declarative" to cater for the commonly held view in communication act theory that treats communication acts as containing a propositional component plus some illocutionary force (e.g. interrogative, command, request, etc.). I flatly reject the idea that an interrogative or a command or a request can be the expression of a "proposition". That such a communication CONTAINS a propositional component I don't deny. But containing a propositional component doesn't make an expression a proposition. "The man who shot Liberty Valence" contains a propositional component but is nothing like a proposition. Can we go back to the MW approach and try: "The meaning of an expression of something that is either true or false." That doesn't include timelessness, necessarily, but going there may trip one of the landmines. SBVR explicitly says it makes no assertions about the meaning of "true" and "false". So "true" doesn't necessarily mean provable or observable or "always true". If we go to the timelessness issue, I think we will need two forms of "timeless": "true" is either "always true" (monotonic) or "instantaneously true" -- the only world for reasoning is NOW (which is the first-order trick for dealing with reality). Even worse, for business rules, we are often talking about real alethics -- my perception of the current state of affairs. -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4482 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 10:57:39 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: Terry Halpin CC: sbvr-ftf@omg.org Subject: Re: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No Terry, I wrote: I flatly reject the idea that an interrogative or a command or a request can be the expression of a "proposition". And I should have realized that writing anything like that on Friday at 7 P.M. is a bad practice. The "flat rejection" is nonsense. There are clearly some special cases that deserve attention. First, the interrogative example: "It is a long way from Sydney to Perth, isn't it?" This form of interrogative explicitly states a proposition, and asks the respondent to confirm or deny it. (It does not, however, *assert* it.) And this applies to any interrogative to which the proper answer is either Yes or No. E.g. "Did Tolstoy write War and Peace?" has the same deep structure as "Tolstoy wrote War and Peace, didn't he?" I'm sure this is what you meant to include, and I agree that it is a valid example. Second, while imperatives in the linguistic sense refer to a specific form of a verb that is distinct from any form that states a proposition, there are "imperative" sentences that state a required result instead of a required action (imperative verb). This is the case of Jean-Luc Picard's "make it so." E.g., "General, have your guns on that hill by nightfall!" is an imperative statement. But the deep structure is an obligation on a proposition, to wit "It is an obligation that your guns be on that hill at nightfall." So there are clearly imperative statements whose meaning is exactly a modality applied to a proposition, no more and no less. (Note also that "General, emplace your guns on that hill by nightfall", which uses an imperative verb, may have the same "sense" (Sinn), but it does not have the same structure of meaning (Bedeutung). This latter statement directs a particular action; the former statement obligates a particular result. The result is a proposition; the action isn't.) So, I agree that a "sentence" need not be declarative in order to explicitly express a proposition. Further, SBVR seems to say that a "modal proposition" IS a proposition, viz. "Obligation Definition: proposition that is required to be true..." And that being the case, not every proposition can be not properly expressed by a declarative sentence. (You can fake it with the form: is required. But that's just a surface syntax; the associated deep structure is imperative.) So I have to agree: "declarative sentence" is not a required part of the meaning of "proposition". We can still argue about whether a proposition is what is *asserted* by a sentence, since an interrogative clearly doesn't assert the proposition. So I will stand by my revised recommendation for the definition of proposition: Can we go back to the MW approach and try: "The meaning of an expression of something that is either true or false." Or perhaps: "The meaning of a sentence that can be either true or false." And the meaning of "is true or false" has a perhaps unexpected interpretation in the case of obligations: What is true or false is WHETHER the obligation holds, not whether the "embedded" proposition holds. So perhaps we should add some such observation as a Note. I still have other problems with "modal formulation", but I have to think more about that. Best regards, -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4482 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Subject: RE: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 09:30:48 -0600 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue Thread-Index: AcZ2IOo3EAU7XLUkRV6ojwjTEoI1tQCDrmMg From: "Terry Halpin" To: Cc: X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by amethyst.omg.org id k4FFKfNS023980 With regard to declarative sentences, a proposition is what it is that is asserted when the sentence is uttered or inscribed. One may view non-declarative sentences (e.g. questions, commands, requests) as having a propositional component plus an illocutionary force -- this of course is not claiming that the speech act producing such a sentence asserts that the propositional component is true. The main thing is to ensure that we don't try to identify a proposition with just any old sentence used to express that proposition, because the same sentence can express many different propositions depending on its context of utterance/inscription (e.g. "It's snowing outside"), and of course the same proposition may be expressed by many different sentences (e.g. "A kookaburra can sing" and "A laughing jackass is capable of singing"). While it is possible to make the full context of a sentence utterance explicit in the sentence expression itself, this requires considerable care and is often not done (e.g. if I say "Terry Halpin is 60 years old" the use of the present tense implicitly includes the time of utterance). To short-circuit endless discussion, I am agreeable to Ed's suggested rewording, i.e. "A proposition is the meaning of an expression of something that is either true or false." Cheers Terry =============================== Dr. Terry Halpin Professor and VP Conceptual Modeling Neumont University 10701 S. River Front Parkway #300 South Jordan, UT 84095 USA e-mail: terry@neumont.edu phone: +1 801 302 2820 fax: +1 801 302 2811 web: www.orm.net -----Original Message----- From: Ed Barkmeyer [mailto:edbark@nist.gov] Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 6:06 PM To: Terry Halpin Cc: sbvr-ftf@omg.org Subject: Re: issue 9715 -- SBVR FTF issue I should say first that I don't feel strongly about this issue. I was struck by the curious terminology of the definition: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" My MW says: "2a An expression in language or signs of something that can be believed, doubted, or denied, or is either true or false 2b The objective meaning of such an expression." From Terry's contribution, I perceive that the intent of the definition was - to choose 2b -- the meaning, not the expression, and - to restrict the term to meanings that are either true or false I don't have any problem with either of those. The problem I had was tying the term proposition to "assertion", "uttered" and "when". To me an assertion is a claim that a proposition is true. So I am concerned about having the meaning of a false proposition depend on its assertion. An expression can be thought of as timeless -- once created, it exists. But "when the expression is uttered" ties the meaning of each 'proposition' to a point in time. Terry Halpin wrote: > (1) Although I take propositions to be timeless (they > never change their truth value), the meaning of a sentence may depend on > the context of its utterance or inscription (including who stated it, > when they did so, and possibly where they did so). Absolutely. So, for a proposition to be timeless, that context must become part of the proposition (the meaning), and a proper expression of that meaning must include that context. But this is only true of some propositions, not all propositions. That is why I want to stay away from words like "when it is uttered". A proper expression of meaning captures the when-ness if it makes a difference, and not if it doesn't. > For example, the > sentence "Today is Friday" may be used to assert different propositions > depending on when it is said (it is time-deictic). If I say it now, I > utter a true proposition, but if I utter the same sentence tomorrow, I > utter a different (and false proposition). So it is not enough to define > proposition as "meaning of a declarative sentence" because the same > sentence can have many different meanings (unlike propositions). I can accept that. "proposition" means the structured meaning that is expressed by a sentence AFTER you get past issues of surface syntax and the presumed context of interpretation. > (2) I prefer to include the claim that propositions are > true or false, so that we are firmly grounded in 2-valued logic as > regards propositions being truth-value bearers. This of course still > allows n-valued logics to discuss one's knowledge state with respect to > propositions. There may be other landmines here, but I can go along with this. > (3) I deliberately excluded the term "declarative" to > cater for the commonly held view in communication act theory that treats > communication acts as containing a propositional component plus some > illocutionary force (e.g. interrogative, command, request, etc.). I flatly reject the idea that an interrogative or a command or a request can be the expression of a "proposition". That such a communication CONTAINS a propositional component I don't deny. But containing a propositional component doesn't make an expression a proposition. "The man who shot Liberty Valence" contains a propositional component but is nothing like a proposition. Can we go back to the MW approach and try: "The meaning of an expression of something that is either true or false." That doesn't include timelessness, necessarily, but going there may trip one of the landmines. SBVR explicitly says it makes no assertions about the meaning of "true" and "false". So "true" doesn't necessarily mean provable or observable or "always true". If we go to the timelessness issue, I think we will need two forms of "timeless": "true" is either "always true" (monotonic) or "instantaneously true" -- the only world for reasoning is NOW (which is the first-order trick for dealing with reality). Even worse, for business rules, we are often talking about real alethics -- my perception of the current state of affairs. -Ed -- National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4482 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:17:45 -0500 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: SBVR-FTF Subject: Proposed resolution to SBVR Issue 9715 - definition of proposition X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No After discussion with Terry, Don, and Donald, I attach the proposed writeup for Issue 9715. I believe that this represents the agreed-upon resolution. Note that the cross-reference to Issue (TBD) refers to an Issue that I am about to send in. All comments welcome. -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Issue9715.doc Disposition: Resolved OMG Issue No: 9715 Title: Definition of 'proposition' Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov Summary: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is asserted when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it is true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("when it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Resolution: A proposition is a meaning; a sentence is an expression of a meaning. The same sentence, however, can express more than one meaning, e.g., when stated by different persons at different times, or in different contexts of reference. So it is important to separate the proposition from its expression, and not to define 'proposition' in terms of sentences. In terms of kinds of meaning, a proposition is distinguished from a concept by having a characteristic that is a "truth value" . true or false. The referent of a proposition is a conceptual/potential state of affairs that may or may not be an actual state of affairs. Issue (TBD) deals with questions and their relationships to other kinds of meaning, including propositions. Revised Text: In clause 8.1.2, in the entry for proposition, REMOVE the Definition: Definition: meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false and REPLACE it with: Definition: meaning that is true or is false Note: proposition is true and proposition is false are the defining characteristics of propositions; they do not apply to any other form of meaning. That is, a proposition is a meaning that has a truth value. Note: A proposition corresponds to a potential state of affairs in a reference context defined by a collection of things of interest and possibly a time frame. The proposition is said to be true if that state of affairs actually exists in that context and false if that state of affairs does not actually exist. The same proposition can be true in one reference context and false in another. (The Note that follows the existing Definition remains.) Disposition: Resolved Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:09:35 -0500 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: SBVR-FTF Subject: SBVR Issue 9715 - definition of proposition - revised resolution X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No All, I attach the revised disposition text, as agreed in today's telecon. -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Issue97151.doc Disposition: Resolved OMG Issue No: 9715 Title: Definition of 'proposition' Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov Summary: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is asserted when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it is true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("when it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Resolution: A proposition is a meaning; a sentence is an expression of a meaning. The same sentence, however, can express more than one meaning, e.g., when stated by different persons at different times, or in different contexts of reference. So it is important to separate the proposition from its expression, and not to define 'proposition' in terms of sentences. In terms of kinds of meaning, a proposition is distinguished from a concept by having a characteristic that is a "truth value" . true or false. The referent of a proposition is a conceptual/potential state of affairs that may or may not be an actual state of affairs. Issue (TBD) deals with questions and their relationships to other kinds of meaning, including propositions. Revised Text: In clause 8.1.2, in the entry for proposition, REMOVE the Definition: Definition: meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false and REPLACE it with: Definition: meaning that is true or is false Note: proposition is true and proposition is false are the defining characteristics of propositions; they do not apply to any other form of meaning. That is, a proposition is a meaning that has a truth value. Note: A proposition corresponds to a potential state of affairs in a reference context defined by a collection of things of interest and possibly a time frame. The proposition is said to be true if that state of affairs actually exists in that context and false if that state of affairs does not actually exist. The same proposition can be true in one reference context and false in another. (The Note that follows the existing Definition remains.) Disposition: Resolved Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:54:09 -0500 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: SBVR-FTF Subject: Re: SBVR Issue 9715 - definition of proposition - revised resolution X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No Ed Barkmeyer wrote: I attach the revised disposition text, as agreed in today's telecon. Actually, I attached the wrong document. This is the revised one. -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Issue9715r1.doc Disposition: Resolved OMG Issue No: 9715 Title: Definition of 'proposition' Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov Summary: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is asserted when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it is true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("when it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Resolution: A proposition is a meaning; a sentence is an expression of a meaning. The same sentence, however, can express more than one meaning, e.g., when stated by different persons at different times, or in different contexts of reference. So it is important to separate the proposition from its expression, and not to define 'proposition' in terms of sentences. In terms of kinds of meaning, a proposition is distinguished from a concept by having a characteristic that is a "truth value" . true or false. The referent of a proposition is a conceptual/potential state of affairs that may or may not be an actual state of affairs. Issue 10621 deals with questions and their relationships to other kinds of meaning, including propositions. Revised Text: In clause 8.1.2, in the entry for proposition, REMOVE the Definition: Definition: meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false and REPLACE it with: Definition: meaning that is true or false Note: .proposition is true. and .proposition is false. are the delimiting characteristics of propositions; they do not apply to any other form of meaning. That is, a proposition is a meaning that has a truth value. Note: A proposition corresponds to a state of affairs in a possible world defined by a collection of things of interest and possibly a time frame. The same proposition can be true in one possible world and false in another. (The Note that follows the existing Definition remains.) Disposition: Resolved Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:07:56 -0500 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, de, pdf, it, nl, sv, es, ru To: SBVR-FTF Subject: SBVR Issue 9715 -- approved version X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-Spam-Status: No Issue9715r2.doc Disposition: Resolved OMG Issue No: 9715 Title: Definition of 'proposition' Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov Summary: In 8.1.2, the definition of 'proposition' says: "meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false" If the meaning is asserted when the sentence is uttered, the proposition is taken by the speaker to be true. Whether the meaning corresponds to the actual 'state of affairs' determines whether it is true or false, and even then not when the sentence is in the future tense. I think the intent here is: "meaning that is asserted by a sentence", full stop. Whether it is true, false, unknown, possible, etc., is irrelevant to the definition. And the time of the utterance ("when it is uttered") is not intended to be important to the meaning of an arbitrary proposition. The definition of 'question' in 8.1.3 uses the undefined term 'interrogatory', but is probably intended to be distinct from 'proposition'. This means that a proposition is not the meaning of an interrogative sentence, and therefore not of an arbitrary sentence, but only of a declarative sentence. Recommendation: In 8.1.2, replace the definition of 'proposition' with: "meaning that is asserted by a declarative sentence" For consistency, in 8.1.3 replace "interrogatory" with "interrogative sentence". Resolution: A proposition is a meaning; a sentence is an expression of a meaning. The same sentence, however, can express more than one meaning, e.g., when stated by different persons at different times, or in different contexts of reference. So it is important to separate the proposition from its expression, and not to define 'proposition' in terms of sentences. In terms of kinds of meaning, a proposition is distinguished from a concept by having a characteristic that is a "truth value" . true or false. The referent of a proposition is a conceptual/potential state of affairs that may or may not be an actual state of affairs. Issue 10621 deals with questions and their relationships to other kinds of meaning, including propositions. Revised Text: In clause 8.1.2, in the entry for proposition, REMOVE the Definition: Definition: meaning that is asserted when a sentence is uttered or inscribed and which is true or false and REPLACE it with: Definition: meaning that is true or false Note: Every meaning that is true or is false is a proposition. That is, a proposition is a meaning that has a truth value. Note: A proposition corresponds to a state of affairs in a possible world defined by a collection of things of interest and possibly a time frame. The same proposition can be true in one possible world and false in another. (The Note that follows the existing Definition remains.) Disposition: Resolved