protasis

[Daniel Everett]

Yes, indeed.

This is the second message I have received from Israel about my
orthographic handicap.

Apologies for my Daniel Boone-like spelling.

Dan


On Sunday, Sep 28, 2003, at 20:55 Europe/London, Gideon Goldenberg
wrote:

> Dear Dan,
>
> Would you take just one step forward and substitute 'protasis'
> for the misspelt 'prodosis'?
>
> Gideon.
>
>> ----------------------------
>> Folks,
>>
>> In my last posting, just now re-reading it, I notice that I
>> inadvertently switched the terms apodosis  (then clause/main clause of
>> conditional) and prodosis (if clause of conditional).
>>
>> So the point was that a conditional like: 'if p (prodosis) then q
>> (apodosis)' is unhelpful as an implicational universal if 'q' is
>> always
>> true, since when 'q' is true, the implication is true for all values
>> of
>> 'p'. This is an elementary property of logic, which all readers will
>> already know in principle, though we don't always seem to know it in
>> practice.
>>
>> In the example I gave,  this means that an implicational universal of
>> the type 'If a language has nasal vowels, then it will have oral
>> vowels' is no truer than 'If a language is only spoken by dead people,
>> then it has oral vowels' or 'If Elvis is still alive, then this
>> language has oral vowels', etc.
>>
>> Surprisingly, though, several universals of just this type are happily
>> ensconced in the literature.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>> ********************
>> Daniel L. Everett
>> Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
>> Postgraduate Admissions Officer
>> Postgraduate Tutor
>> Department of Linguistics
>> University of Manchester
>> Manchester, UK
>> M13 9PL
>> Phone: 44-161-275-3158
>> Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
>> http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
>
>
>
>

------------------------------------------

Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonology
Postgraduate Programme Director
Postgraduate Admissions Officer
Department of Linguistics
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, UK M13 9PL
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de
Fax: 44-161-275-3187
Office: 44-161-275-3158