Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 00:41:07 +0100
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: pc on ro
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
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I think I probably fail in my struggles to understand pc, but here
goes, anyway:
>         When someone says in the ordinary course of events (well, not
> all that ordinary in this traditional example) "All unicorns are white,"
> the response "There aren't any unicorns" is neither intended nor
> understood as confirming the original claim.  It is a challenge to the
> original claim, a contrary claim to it, as much as "Some are blue" is.
 
There are plenty of occasions in normal English usage when _all/every_
is not given an interpretation where existence is implicated. Jorge has
already made this point, & I think someone else recently said that
when existence is implicated, this can be entrusted to pragmatics.
 
However, I wouldn't be averse to requiring {ro da broda [if] brode}
(I forget which GIhA it is). I'm all in favour of the syntax matching
the logical form as closely as possible.
 
> After reworking through the stages of the shift, I can find only one step
> which seems to me to be open to reconsideration.  That is the
> identification of _ro broda_ with _ro lo broda_.
 
What is the extent of this reconsideration? Does it apply to other
members of PA? How does it affect the {lo/lo/lohi} series, if {ro
broda} is no longer an abbreviation for {ro lo broda}?
 
> Unlike the existential import of _ro da poi broda_, which is central to
> Lojban as a language
 
Am I alone in not knowing that this is so?
 
---
And