From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Wed May 31 00:00:46 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3192 ; Wed, 31 May 95 00:00:42 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Tue, 30 May 95 19:02:30 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa25693; 30 May 95 20:01 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9265; Tue, 30 May 95 14:59:27 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 4538; Tue, 30 May 1995 14:26:53 -0400 Date: Tue, 30 May 1995 14:30:35 EDT Reply-To: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Subject: Re: non-existance predications X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9505302001.aa25693@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R la lojbab cusku di'e > Since the "na" has scope of the entire bridi, there is no problem. It > converts to "naku lo crida zo'u lo crida cu zasti" "It is not the case > that: for something that is a fairy, that fairy exists." Does it work like that? What ties the {lo crida} in the prenex with the one in the body of the phrase? As I understand it they are independent, just like {lo prenu cu prami lo prenu} does not say that some person loves themself, only that some person loves some person. You'd have to say something like {naku lo crida zo'u: cy zasti} to get what you want. What you wrote means "it is not the case that for some fairy, some fairy exists." > The problem arises if you have a selbri which requires non-existance. I think the problem is treating the existence of reference as some other kind of existence. > Let us say that "nalzasti" is such a selbri (at one time "xanri" had > this meaning). Then: "lo crida cu nalzasti" could cause a problem if > there are no such things as fairies. Depends what you mean by {nalzasti}. Is it true that {noda nalzasti}? Is {lo'i nalzasti} the empty set? If yes, then {lo crida cu nalzasti} has to be false, but I don't think you want {lo'i nalzasti} to be the empty set, it probably has an infinite number of elements. > I'm not sure it does, because for > me, the equivalent "lo crida zo'u lo crida cu nalzasti", the prenexing > in the "lo crida" form contains no stronger claim of existence than it > does in the main text. But in the "da poi" form there is a clear > problem: da poi crida zo'u da nalzasti clearly is false because you > have postulated the existance of da in the prenex, then said that da > not-exists, contradicting yourself. No, the existence postulated in the prenex is merely one of reference. If there is a predicate, and the predicate is not meaningless, then I don't see how it can be referentially empty. > Question for pc then: in standard logic, does a non-quantified variable > in the prenex claim its existance, or merely cite a variable without > claiming reference. What is a non-quantified variable? How can you have such a thing? There was a nice word that pc used once (syncategorematic or something of the sort, I don't remember exactly) which is more or less what {ke'a} is (both in relative clauses and as I propose to use it with {ka}) but you can't have a non-quantified variable in the prenex, at least it doesn't make any sense to me. > If the latter, then we have identified a slight, > almost trivial, difference between lo broda and da poi broda. I don't see it. There are differences in practical terms, you can specify an inner quantifier with {lo}, and you can use {da} as many times as you want with one quantification, but there is no difference from the quantificational point of view. Jorge