Return-Path: <@segate.sunet.se:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from segate.sunet.se by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0sn8NA-0000ZJC; Mon, 28 Aug 95 20:53 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from segate.sunet.se by segate.sunet.se (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id 1D529E85 ; Mon, 28 Aug 1995 19:37:03 +0200 Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 13:14:44 EDT Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Subject: Re: McCawley X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1876 Lines: 50 And: > I have just discovered that my contention that the logical form > of > Two people left. > Re prenu cu cliva. > is > Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] y left > is shared by James McCawley, in [...] > The authority for this contention is therefore as eminent as > anyone could require. The only reason why it seems to fail for Lojban is that {re prenu} is supposed to mean _exactly_ two people, while in your expansion, the existence of the set of cardinality 2 does not preclude the existence of a superset of cardinality 3 whose members also all leave. So for Lojban it would have to be: Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] y left & ~Ex x is set & 3 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] y left Given that, I don't think anyone would disagree with it. The problem comes when you follow it with another quantifier. Does it have coordinate or subordinate scope? To simplify, let's use {su'ore} instead of the exact {re}. What is {su'ore prenu cu cliva lo zdani}? It could be either coordinate: Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ez Ay [y is in x] y left z Two people leave a house (the same one). Or subordinate: Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] Ez y left z Two people leave a house (each their own). In other words, does the second quantifier come before or after the implicit "Ay" of "two people"? I don't think there is any reason why one choice is more "logical" than the other, it's a matter of convention. According to pc, the distinction is made by whether the quantifiers are put in the prenex or not, but I would prefer it if that didn't make a difference. In English, it is ambiguous between the two meanings. It will depend a lot on context. "Two people leave a house" sounds more probably coordinate, but "two people are wearing a white dress" sounds subordinate. Jorge