From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Thu Jun 22 23:30:47 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3569 ; Thu, 22 Jun 95 23:30:45 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Thu, 22 Jun 95 19:42:14 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa11074; 22 Jun 95 20:41 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8355; Thu, 22 Jun 95 15:39:29 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 7836; Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:23:52 -0400 Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 15:25:58 EDT Reply-To: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Subject: Re: pc answers X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506222041.aa11074@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R pc: > To wander somewhat off the point, I have noted that in logic > quantifiers and descriptors have little to do with one another. Could you give a couple of examples of the logic of descriptors? >From what you say, I don't really recognize what they are. > If all > descriptors are just quantifiers, then we have no way to refer to objects > in their absence. Why not? Say I want to refer to my book in its absence. Then I can use {le mi cukta}, which is {ro le mi cukta}, each of my relevant books, in this case there is only one, so just my book. What's wrong with that to refer to absent objects? > Even the person I just called djan to his face becomes merely "there > is an x which I have in mind to call djan such that" when I try to talk > about him. I don't think names work like that. To me, {la djan klama} means the one named John goes. It doesn't just say "there is an x that I call John who goes", because it assumes that the listener knows (or can find out, or could ask) what is the referent of {la djan}. > But the quantifier=descriptor system as it is laid out is also > incoherent. We are told that _ci_gerku_ just is _ci_lo_gerku_, which just > is _ci_lo_so'u_gerku_. The last one should be {ci lo ro gerku}, but it doesn't really change things that much, assuming there are not many empty predicates. > From which we can infer that that just is > _ci_lo_so'u_lo_gerku_ which just is _ci_lo_so'u_lo_so'u_gerku_. Those are not equivalent. {ci [lo] gerku} is "three dogs". {ci lo su'o lo gerku} is "three of some dogs". Maybe in the case of {lo} this doesn't really make much difference, but it is not an automatic expansion. > And so > on. And, in the other direction, _ro_lo_ci_lo_nanmu_ just is ultimately > _ro_ci_nanmu_, which, if not ungrammatical, is at least not very sensible. This doesn't really follow. {lo} can only be dropped when there is no inner quantifier. {ci nanmu} is a shorthand notation, nothing more. It is by definition {ci lo nanmu}, but this doesn't mean that {ci lo} can always be replaced by {ci} in every position that it appears. It usually can't. > And if that is not wrong, what about _roda_poi_cide_poi_nanmu_ (or even > _cida_), which is also what the original expression is said to just be? No, it is not that. Inner quantifiers cannot be expressed in any easy way in terms of {da}. {ro da poi ci de poi nanmu} means "every x for which three y which are men...} and we are still waiting for the selbri that goes with the first {poi}. > I take it that those special cases where quantifiers and > descriptors can be used to describe the same situation in fairly obviously > related ways have been generalized to the claim that correspondingly > parallel sentences involving the two types of expressions will always > describe the same situations. Can you give examples where descriptors are used without the corresponding quantifiers? I don't really see what you mean. Jorge