Three Degrees of Involvement with "Predicates"

--- from Grice, PPQ, vol. 67, p. 8


In considering

1. Bill buttered the parsnip.
2. Bill buttered the parsnip in the bathroom.
3. Bill buttered the parsnip in the bathroom in the presence of Joe.

Grice notes:

We have

FIRST, "predicate letters which are the bricks" of the scheme.

SECOND, "open sentences -- formed FROM the bricks -- (like '... buttered ... in ... in the presence of ...') -- which "MUST HAVE ASSIGNABLE N-ADICITY".

THIRD, individuals to which predicates can be truly applied.


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We can now license the inference:


Smith buttered the parsnip in the bathroom.
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Therefore, Smith buttered the parsnip.


"It seems clear that some appeal to structure
is called for."

"The question is whether the structures
... are or are not the same as ... those which
are required for a systematic account of
language". (Degree III of Involvement).

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But, but for Grice (as for me), "the proposed" (by Davidson) "identification of structures is illegitimate" (p. 9) And who needs post-structuralism apres that?