Why "it" cannot be removed?

"it" refers to the robot.

@Roberta,

Roberta wrote:

"it" refers to the robot.

Thanks.

I think, however, the orders are no doubt given by human beings to the robot. So removing "it" will still remain the same meaning withous ambiguousness.

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@oristarA,

Yes, the meaning will remain the same without "it."

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@oristarA,

All meanings are "holistic" and rarely just sentence specific. The use of "it" implies the intention of the author to convey the inanimate nature of the receiver of "orders" which would usually imply an animate receiver.

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@fresco,

Cool.

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@fresco,

Quote:

All meanings are "holistic" and rarely just sentence specific. The use of "it" implies the intention of the author to convey the inanimate nature of the receiver of "orders" which would usually imply an animate receiver.

In so far as I understand what you mean here (imperfectly), I think you are wrong.

In the original sentence, "given it" means the same as "given to it" or just "given".
"Orders given it" (or "orders given to it") is more specific than just "orders given" (which could be taken to mean all orders given, not specifically those given to the recipient) but for most practical purposes, the three forms are synonymous.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Sorry if I was not clear enough. It depends on what your views on grammar are.
Some grammars take "the sentence" as the fundamental analytic unit, and others lean towards (holistic) discourse analysis. Linguistic philosophers like Quine and Wittgenstein have in recent times favoured the latter view in which semantic import must be associated with overall communicative intent. In this view, the "equivalence" of sentence forms is always relative to such intent, and cannot assigned to some sort of isometric mappings (synonymity) of representational symbols.

As an aside, with the advent of Derrida and the post-modernists, textual representation has become something of a problem area, and is associated with the rejection of the "correspondence theory of truth".

associated reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_holism
http://lingo.stanford.edu/sag/papers/kalman-holistic.pdf

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

What does "it" refer to?

Context:

Number two: A robot must obey orders given it by qualified personnel unless those orders violate rule number one. In other words a robot cannot be ordered ...

Given to it would be more correctly said...

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Linguistic philosophers like Quine and Wittgenstein

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@Fido,

Quote:

Given to it would be more correctly said...

This is false, Fido.

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@oristarA,

'it' can be removed, Ori, but then the nuance changes. Without 'it' it is more general, with 'it' it is more specific.

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@fresco,

Quote:

Some grammars take "the sentence" as the fundamental analytic unit, and others lean towards (holistic) discourse analysis. Linguistic philosophers like Quine and Wittgenstein have in recent times favoured the latter view in which semantic import must be associated with overall communicative intent. In this view, the "equivalence" of sentence forms is always relative to such intent, and cannot assigned to some sort of isometric mappings (synonymity) of representational symbols.

Your analysis is compelling notwithstanding the inherent problem of cognitive ability and the contranymity of some communicators.

"Number two: A robot must obey orders given it by qualified personnel unless those orders violate rule number one. In other words a robot cannot be ordered ...

To paraphrase, I understand any old rubbish oristar posts. Rather than look at "it" in isolation let's do the same for every word in the text to savour the tautology, redundancy, inaccuracy and verbiage.

Directive Two: Robots obey authority unless that order violates the prime directive. A robot therefore cannot ...

1 Reply

@laughoutlood,

The Three Laws of Robotics, by science fiction author Isaac Asimov.
The Laws are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I have always thought the meaning of the above was straightforward. Now, it seems, it can only be understood after deep and meaningful arguments between linguistic philosophers. What rubbish!

Asimov's robots were constructed with advanced (but not perfect) cognitive functions, capable of logical decisions. Ethical decisions were a lot harder.
Robots were aware of their individuality.
Laws are supposedly written in such a way as to avoid ambiguity.

For this reason, taken in context, I believe the 'it' was necessary. A situation could arise where the 'human beings' in question may be giving orders to another robot, or another human for that matter and the individual robot would need help in deciding whether the orders being given applied to it.

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Listen all ! Evil or Very Mad

The last poster was correct for the following reasons.

A none native speaker asks a question about the function of one word in a single sentence. He wants to know whether the word is needed or superfluous. Mrs Johnson the 12th grade English teacher tells him it's superfluous. But when he asks at the same question at college, Professor Halliday from the linguistics department tells him that he needs to look further than the sentence, at the overall context, in order to decide whether a particular word is redundant or not. His friend Dr Derrida, from the English and Philosophy department, agrees but tells him only the author of narrative can make a final decision on whether the word is required for his intended impact.

So in the absence of the author himself, what do we say to the questioner ?
We say that that the theme of the topic is about the distinction between men
and machines. We say the "rules of robotics" are about keeping those intelligent androids" in their place. And to that end there is argument for emphasis of calling such machines it rather than by a personal pronoun. We point out that several episodes of Star Trek involving the "rights" of the android Data illustrate this very point by allowing Data's friends to use "him", and the nasty abductor to use "it". And since this is a similar Sci Fi genre to the original text, we base our advice on that !

Now if any of this is unclear, I will be running remedial classes on holistic semantics after school.
(And you can stop rolling your eyes at the back !)

1 Reply

That's about it.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Listen all !

The last poster was correct for the following reasons.

A none native speaker asks a question about the function of one word in a single sentence. He wants to know whether the word is needed or superfluous. Mrs Johnson the 12th grade English teacher tells him it's superfluous. But when he asks at the same question at college, Professor Halliday from the linguistics department tells him that he needs to look further than the sentence, at the overall context, in order to decide whether a particular word is redundant or not. His friend Dr Derrida, from the English and Philosophy department, agrees but tells him only the author of narrative can make a final decision on whether the word is required for his intended impact.

So in the absence of the author himself, what do we say to the questioner ?
We say that that the theme of the topic is about the distinction between men
and machines. We say the "rules of robotics" are about keeping those intelligent androids" in their place. And to that end there is argument for emphasis of calling such machines it rather than by a personal pronoun. We point out that several episodes of Star Trek involving the "rights" of the android Data illustrate this very point by allowing Data's friends to use "him", and the nasty abductor to use "it". And since this is a similar Sci Fi genre to the original text, we base our advice on that !

Now if any of this is unclear, I will be running remedial classes on holistic semantics after school.
(And you can stop rolling your eyes at the back !)

Good point.

Thanks.

0 Replies

Why "it" cannot be removed?

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