On 8/30/07, Kerim Aydin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2007, Kerim Aydin wrote:
> > Can you point me to a reference in logical or grammatical literature
> > that assigns a truth value to any imperative statement ("Stand up",
> > "Go left", "Zefram, be quiet").
>
> Oh hey, I found a reference that agrees with you:
> http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(195907)26%3A3%3C172%3AIITFAL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8
>
> But I can't read the whole thing (not willing to pay $14), and the fact
> that it's a published paper suggests that (at least in 1959) it wasn't
> obvious or necessarily correct. Ain't Google neat?
>
> -Goethe
>
>
I have JSTOR access. I skimmed the whole thing, and I take from it
this bit which seems to be particularly relevant to us:
"An interesting aspect of imperatives is that although they express
the will of the speaker, their truth or falsity depends on the will of
the addressee. [...] [By how he reacts to the imperative] he makes the
imperative to be true or false."
If we accept this argument, I'd say that at the time the statement is
made it's neither true nor false, although one could argue that if the
imperative is directed towards an officer who is bound by the Rules,
the speaker in question can determine with certainty what the response
to the imperative will (or at least SHALL) be, and therefore what the
truth value of the imperative will be at some later time.
--
Geoffrey Spear
http://www.geoffreyspear.com/
