[lojban] Re: za'e "postnex"

[Martin Bays <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, And Rosta wrote:

> Lojbab:
> > At 03:41 AM 1/23/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > >Martin Bays:
> > > > Is there a nice way to quantify over variables "in afterthought"?
> > > >
> > > > It's the kind of thing you see in (informal) mathematics all the time -
> > > > it's often natural to assume your variables are arbitrary when you write
> > > > the main formula, and only afterwards think to put in the "for all x". So
> > > > you might have, say "n[sub]i > 0 (all i in N)"
> > > >
> > > > So is there an elegant way to translate this kind of thing into lojban?
> > >
> > >Not in Standard Lojban
> >
> > You just need to be creative
> >
> > [text] .i ro ibu zo'u go'i/la'edi'u
> > or
> > [text with no .i on the end] vau to ro ibu zo'u
>
> Both are elegant but in different ways (which could be discussed on
> Jboske) they both require glorking to get from what they actually say
> to the intended meaning, whereas ordinary prenexes don't. That doesn't
> mean that Martin wouldn't be satisfied with your suggestions, but it
> does mean that it would be misleading to describe your suggestions as
> afterthought quantification, if that implies some kind of strong parallel
> with forethought quantification.
>

Indeed, but then the mathematical usage we were emulating is similarly
ambiguous and ill-defined. I think the {li'o vau to li'o zo'u} solution is
an accurate rendering of the original, and sounds quite natural. Though of
course you're right that a proper prenex will always be preferable, it's
something I can imagine quite often not thinking of in time.

Though perhaps it's best to keep lojban unforgiving, and let it teach us
to think ahead more...

---

#^t'm::>#shs>:#,_$1+9j9"^>h>" < v
:>8*0\j" o'u" v" e'i" v".neta"^q>
       ;z,[;  >       >       ^