In a message dated 3/13/2002 7:12:37 AM Central Standard Time, arosta@uclan.ac.uk writes:"ro da ga broda gi na brode" is effectively nonimporting, since it Well, the first is long and (consequently?) ugly and does not allow the distinction as subject of {broda} and {naku broda}. The second, as xorxes says, turns out to meaningless (and probably falsifying) if lo'i broda is null. I like xorxes minimalist {ni'u}, which immediately projects to {ganai de broda gi}. <I have to concede that, from my *severely* limited knowledge of restricted quantification, r.q. is importing, so if "da poi" is, as the syntax obviously suggests, r.q., then "ro da poi ke'a broda" entails "su'o da broda". And if "lo broda" is an abbreviation of "da poi ke'a broda" then "ro broda" must entail "su'o da broda". So, although my dialect is the same as Jorge's, I think I shall have to switch sides to pc, and declare myself to have been Wrong. I am fairly confident that this entire thread will have zero effect on usage, but the participants seem to have derived pleasure from it, which is enough.> Moving you into the imporeting column is quite enough of an accomplishment for a discussion. Pleasure does not enter, alas; there is too much frustration (exasperation?) for that. But excitement is also a nice thing to have from time to time. <You could see "no" in both English and Lojban as having its existence justified by virtue of it being a number, rather than being an abbreviation of "not some". That argument would be stronger for Lojban than for English.> But not historically, since English had the "no" long before 0 was a number (in every possible reading of that phrase). xorxes: <>{ro lu'a lo'i broda} For me it is not importing. I think pc might say {ro lu'a lo'i broda} is nonsense when {lo'i broda} is the empty set.> And so he does, "every member of an empty set" just makes no sense, since there aren't any. <I wouldn't know how to check that. Would you say for example that this page is wrong: http://www.wabash.edu/depart/Phil/classmaterials/Phil3F99/Phil3txt/Phil3txt7/Phil3txt73/Phil3txt733.html When it moves very freely from restricted form (Ax:Sx)Px to unrestricted Ax(Sx->Px)> If you check other pages, you will find that Helman is not dealing with restricted quantification as such but using the notation as a stage in the process of translating English into symbols in ordinatry first-order logic. Once the block attached to the quantifier is correctly filled in, the whole can then be correctly moved into the formula in the usual way. But the "restricted quantifier" (as the regular use of "thing" suggests) is just a passing phase of translation, not a part of the logic. <. I think the introduction of the +/- notation in this round of the discussion was a big step forward, as we can now avoid the "A entails I, no it doesn't, yes it does" silliness. Everybody agrees that A+ entails I+ and that A- does not entail I+.> I agree and also think that the {ni'u} development of that idea is very valuable. Alas, I fear that agreeing about As and Is will not yet help us to agree about {ro} and {su'o} even in ultimate forms ({ro} does always imply {su'o} and you can work it out, but that is unconvincing somehow to some). > |