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Re: [jboske] Intensions: W

At 06:34 AM 1/6/03 -0500, John Cowan wrote: 
Nick Nicholas scripsit:
> The president of the U.S. will always be a Republican.
>
> 1. If 'the president' refers to its extension (the guy currently
> holding the office, W), then this is merely saying that W will always
> be a Republican. Not a startling claim.
>
> 2. If 'the president' refers to the intension (whosoever the
> officeholder shall be at any particular time, as a function mapping
> time and world to any individual holding the office), that means
> there will never be a Dem prez.

[snip]

> ... So which of the two does
>
> lo merjatna baroroi prenrnrepubikana
>
> mean? Both? The latter?

Well, "lo merjatna" means that this is "some president" rather than
"the president": could be equally well Shrub or Herbert Hoover.
Neglecting that, though, the regular left-to-right quantifier scope
rule means that this is "Ex Atimes x is president", i.e. close to your
interpretation 1.

On the other hand, I believe we have also said that "na" and "tense" interact as modifiers to selbri (and grammatically they can be alternated). na, as part of the selbri, exports differently from other standard quantifiers, to the beginning of the prenex, and I should think that tenses that are part of the selbri would have to work the same way.

(The moment we get into to tense logic questions, we really oughta ask pc, since that is his area of expertise.)

lojbab

--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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