Re: pc answers

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge to pc:
> >    Xorxes call attention to a further problem also involved here, ci
> > nanmu cu pencu ci gerku. The choices here are between one that involves
> > three men and only three dogs and one that involves three men and as many
> > as nine dogs, three for each man. As usual the first reading entails the
> > second, so, if we decide that the Lojban means the second, we have a
> > cover for the first as well. But the issue then is, how do we say the
> > first explcitly (short of spelling out the quantifiers, of course).
> One possibility is:
>        ro lo ci lo nanmu cu pencu ro lo ci lo gerku
>        Each of three of all men touch each of three of all dogs.

I don't get that as necessarily distinct from pc's second reading.
That is, why should it be

  There's a cimei of men, and there's a cimei of dogs, such that
  each member of the man cimei touches each member of the dog
  cimei

rather than

  There's a cimei of men, such that for each m, m a member of the
  man cimei, there's a cimei of dogs, such that m touches each
  member of the dog cimei
?

I recall you saying that the solution was something approximately
resembling

  ci da poi nanmu e ci de poi gerku zohu da pencu de

I find that a better solution, but since it requires forethought,
and since I agree with pc that everything should have an alternative
afterthought mode of expression, I also think that pc is right
to think that a new cmavo might be useful to signal parallel
scope, i.e.

   Ev, v a cimei, Ew, w a cimei, Ax, x in v, Ay, y in w: x pencu y

instead of what we seem to be agreeing should be the default:

   Ev, v a cimei, Ax, x in v: Ew, w a cimei, Ay, y in w: x pencu y

The new cmavo would signal that that the second existential quantifier
precedes the first universal quantifier, or, in different words, that
the existential quantifier (for the mei) in the sumti marked by that
cmavo scopes before the last universal quantifier (for the cmima) in
the logical form so far.

I would like to add that I think these afterthought cmavo should be
adopted as part of a more general programme to provide general purpose
methods of afterthought scope. I get the impression that Loglan was
created with much thought given to predicate-argument structure and
very little to quantifier scope. One of the lessons I've learnt from
Lojban is that these are the two (& possibly the only two) most
important jobs syntax must have (though it can shirk them), and the
structures required for each are pretty much independent of each other.
---
And