[lojban-beginners] Re: Propositional vs. predicate was: Firefox Add-on

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 8/2/07, Vid Sintef <picos.picos@gmail.com> wrote:
>  I'm not
> an expert logican or linguist but I do understand that such
> propositional expressions as "A is B" is prevalent in natlangs while
> numbered place structures are not. So at least I've been tempted to
> think natlangs commonly share the logic of proposition as one of their
> basic components. Please fix my bug if any.

Expressions such as "A is B" belong to term logic, not propositional
logic. In propositional logic the atomic components are complete
propositions which are not further decomposed, and the logic deals with
the complex propositions obtained by combining the atomic ones by
means of logical connectives: p and q, p or q, if p then q, etc. "A is B" in
term logic consists of two terms that together form a proposition.

Natlangs are not formal logic systems, but propositional logic, term logic
and predicate logic are all diffferent formalizations of natlang logic. Lojban
is obviously not a purely formal system, but it is an attempt to make the
connection with formal predicate logic as transparent as possible.

mu'o mi'e xorxes