Re: [lojban] A serious but ungeneralized new attempt on Q-kau

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/4/2001 9:00:03 AM Central Daylight Time,
arosta@uclan.ac.uk writes:

Is there any reason why the first sumti is "le nu" and the second "lo nu"?
I'd change the first to a plain {ro}:

   {ro nu makau I have for dinner cu some-lujvo-of-{tcini}
    lo nu makau is in the fridge}

Is that right? And you want it to mean "Each nu ... dinner has among its
occurrence-conditions some nu ... fridge".

And how do we get rid of the makau? Thus? --

  For every x, for every y that is a ka'e nu I have x for dinner: there is
some
  z such that y's occurrence conditions include z's being in the fridge.

I can't decide whether that's too broad when compared to the English.
At any rate, I *think* it is a reasonable approximation, but fails to
capture the relationship between sets/categories. I ought to be more
constructive and offer an alternative analysis, or at least an explanation
of my reservations, but I've been sitting here for twenty minutes trying
to, when today I have an excess of infinitely more urgent tasks, so this
will have to wait till I have time to think.

Basically, yes.  The {le} is just to contrast with the {lo}, but the point is
the same with {ro}, I think.  And the quantifier rewrite seems right, taking
sets as totalities of satisfying items (with a number of hidden clauses here
having to do with relevance and preconditions -- not every food would fit
since some are not plausible meals, etc.)

Now do consider this, which I take to be equivalent, but am blessed if I can
prove it:
le I have ke'a for dinner ca ce'u cu depends on le contents of the fridge ca
ce'uxino (I can't work out the way to otherwise correlate the {ce'u}:
all x all y if y is a possible dinner on x then for some z, y's being so is
conditioned by z being in the fridge on x.  
Maybe it only amounts to the same thing, without being strictly equivalent.