Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 22:51:50 +0100
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: afterthought scope retraction
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Message-id: <01HV8X8YZ00I0006Z9@FIPORT.FUNET.FI>
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A while back I made a number of proposals for how to indicate scope
in afterthought (when the desired scope is not indicated by left-to-
right order). The proposals were intended to state the scope
relationship between sumti. I failed to take into account that
scope concerns not only quantifiers but also connectives. My proposals
are therefore insufficiently general as a solution, so I withdraw
them.
 
Looking at Lojban/Loglan with 30 years hindsight, I'd say that if
one wishes to develop a logical language (that is a bit more
flexible than pred logic notation) then one should start with
scope, and only then tackle the predicate-argument structure.
 
It is too late for that now, of course. So instead I'd argue that
Lojban is a fixed word-order language, with word order determined
by scope, but within those constraints there is some flexibility
when scope is not involved.
 
---
And