Re: [jboske] putative tense scope effects (was: RE:

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

Invent Yourself scripsit:

> Is it a coincidence that the meaning you assign to the Lojban word orders
> match that typically assigned to the English reading too? Is this an
> arbitrary convention, whether or not it is mirrored by other natural
> languages too? Or could the custom have been that the scope interpretation
> be reversed, for instance?

It could have been. But it would break with not only the English convention,
but much more importantly, the convention of formal logic, which scopes
variables from their appearance rightwards. So "roda broda de" means
"Ax Ey broda(x,y)".

-- 
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