[Corpora-List] What is the meaning of life?

[Bill Keller]

Hi

I always enjoyed this joke, so couldn't resist checking.  Barwise and Perry actually attribute the answer ^life'  to Barbara Partee and Terry Parsons.

All the best,
Bill

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Keller
Senior Lecturer in Computing			
School of Informatics		tel: +44 (0)1273 678755
The University of Sussex		email: billk at sussex.ac.uk
Falmer, Brighton				
BN1 9QH



On 3 Jan 2010, at 12:48, WHITELOCK, Pete wrote:

> Hi Adam, and a happy new year 2u2.
>  
> Isn't it ^life' ( a function from possible worlds to predicates that classify life in those worlds)?
>  
> I thought it was Emmon Bach. I know for sure it was referenced in Barwise and Perry, but my copy's gone walkies so I can't give you the exact quote. I do remember they said 'which would be funny if it wasn't such a reductio ad absurdum of man's search for ...' (and woman's, presumably, though they don't mention her).
>  
> Pete
>  
> Pete Whitelock 
> Data and Resources Development Manager 
> Reference Department 
> Academic Division 
> Oxford University Press
> 
>  
> 
> From: corpora-bounces at uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] On Behalf Of Adam Kilgarriff
> Sent: 02 January 2010 05:46
> To: corpora at uib.no
> Subject: [Corpora-List] What is the meaning of life?
> 
> Answer: life prime
> 
> Does anyone have a source for my favourite formal linguistics joke?  (I heard it attributed to Montague, of Montague grammar, but I have no idea if that's right)
> 
> happy new year
> 
> adam
> 
> -- 
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> Adam Kilgarriff                                      http://www.kilgarriff.co.uk              
> Lexical Computing Ltd                   http://www.sketchengine.co.uk
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> Universities of Leeds and Sussex       adam at lexmasterclass.com
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