Jorge Llambías, On 15/10/2011 16:16:
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 7:39 AM, And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:The proposition intended by donkey sentences is easy to grasp, and pretty commonplace, but hard to formulate in ordinary logic; a logical language should find a way to render the proposition into logic and express it succinctly.Would you agree that "ro te cange cu darxi ro xasli poi ri ponse ke'a" captures that proposition, even though it doesn't respect the original structure?
Yes.
Because the structure is so different, this may not work as a general solution to the problem.
The commonest case where covert donkey sentences occur is with conditionals: "If you give me money, I'll spend it on drugs" = "Every possible circumstance in which there is money that you give me is a circumstance in which there is money that you give me and I spend on drugs". I don't think your solution works for that. Applying your solution gives (I think) "Every circumstance is such that in it I spend all money that you give me", which has the wrong meaning. Crucially, the conditionals rely on restricted quantification (over circumstances in which such and such is the case). So well done with the reformulation of the classic donkey sentence, but now turn your ingenuity to "Every possible circumstance in which there is money that you give me is a circumstance in which there is money that you give me and I spend on drugs". --And. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.