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Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
Jorge Llambías, On 17/10/2011 01:31:
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:19 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:
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).
Why does it have the wrong meaning? Is it still wrong if you use "any"
instead of "all"?
In apprehending underlying forms, we need to get rid of "any", since it is an English reflection of a quantifier interacting with a conditional.
But let's change "money" to "five quid": "Every circumstance is such that in it I spend five quid that you give me". Wrong, obviously. Or try "If you tell me your name, I'll murmur it".
I think my solution would give: "For any money, if
you give it to me, I'll spend it on drugs" or "I'll spend on drugs any
money you give me".
Underlying "if" and conditionals is a logical form that is either repretitious, "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", or else a donkey sentence, "Every possible circumstance in which there is money that you give me is a circumstance in which I spend it on drugs". So your challenge is to reformulate that, without using "if" or "any", but without the repetition (of "there is money that you give me").
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".
I think the issue with donkey sentences is not so much reformulating
them in terms of ordinary first order logic, which can be done by
replacing the short scope existential by a wide scope universal. The
problematic issue is explaining what's going on, since this conversion
is not licensed by any rules of logic.
I see what you're saying, but I think we have different understandings of the quintessence of donkey-sentencehood. I take it to be when you have quantification within a restriction on a variable, in "for every X such that there is a Y such that F(X,Y), there is a Y such that F(X,Y) and G(X,Y)", which might be Englished as the less repetitious donkey-sentence "for every X such that there is a Y such that F(X,Y), G(X,Y)".
I see that as the quintessence of donkey-sentencehood not because that is how it is standardly seen in linguistics, but rather because that is the main problem they present for a logical language.
--And.
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