Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

I'm not clear where these circumstances came from; the original is just about 
money.  To be sure, your giving me money is a circumstance, as is my buying 
drugs with it, but why go into that.
The context leaper rule (verso existential with anaphora outside its scope is a 
recto universal with scope covering both cases) is nothing to do with logic per 
se but is about getting things into regimented form.  And that, as Montague 
would say, is just a fact of the grammar of English, properly understood.  Does 
it really work for Lojban?  Donnow, let's work it out.  since Lojban is 
*supposed* to be regimented already, the problem shouldn't arise.  But it seems 
to, so either Lojban is not regimented (and so needs some work) or some forms 
that we have been using are improper or don't mean what we think they do.




----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 16, 2011 7:31:56 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

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"? 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".

> 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.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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