Re: Chief logician?

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

Randall asks:
> Does anyone in the
> Lojban community realize that logical connectives applied to arguments
> produce problems of scope (usually handled implicitly in NL's)
> precisely analogous to those connected with quantification?

Logical connectives are never applied to arguments in Lojban. (In the sense
that all forms of logical connection are contractions of full bridi
connections.)

And yes, the debate on "any" was sparkled by a logical connection question:

        mi nitcu le tanxe a le dakli
        I need (the box OR the bag)

means:
        (I need the box) OR (I need the bag)

It does not mean what we usually mean in English by "I need either of the
box or the bag".

> Consider
>
> John and James love Mary or Sally
>
> versus
>
> Mary or Sally is loved by John and James
>
> In the second sentence, but not in the first, it is clear that John
> and James love the same unspecified element of {Mary, Sally}; in the
> first sentence, they may love different elements of the set.

If you have two logical connectives in a Lojban sentence, I think the
first one binds tighter, so

        la djan e la djeimyz prami la meris a la salis

expands to:

        la djan e la djeimyz prami la meris
        ija la djan e la djeimyz prami la salis

        (John loves Mary AND James loves Mary)
        OR (John loves Sally AND James loves Sally)

while:

        la meris a la salis se prami la djan e la djeimyz

goes to:

        la meris a la salis se prami la djan
        ije la meris a la salis se prami la djeimyz

        (Mary is loved by John OR Sally is loved by John)
        AND (Mary is loved by James OR Sally is loved by James)

This is in reverse of the meaning you give for the English sentences,
but there is no ambiguity.

Jorge