Subject: Re: [lojban] A serious but ungeneralized new attempt on Q-kau

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 11:07:17 EDT

In a message dated 9/4/2001 9:00:03 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Is there any reason why the first sumti is "le nu" and the second "lo nu"?
> I'd change the first to a plain {ro}:
> 
> {ro nu makau I have for dinner cu some-lujvo-of-{tcini} 
> lo nu makau is in the fridge}
> 
> Is that right? And you want it to mean "Each nu ... dinner has among its
> occurrence-conditions some nu ... fridge".
> 
> And how do we get rid of the makau? Thus? --
> 
> For every x, for every y that is a ka'e nu I have x for dinner: there is 
> some
> z such that y's occurrence conditions include z's being in the fridge.
> 
> I can't decide whether that's too broad when compared to the English. 
> At any rate, I *think* it is a reasonable approximation, but fails to
> capture the relationship between sets/categories. I ought to be more
> constructive and offer an alternative analysis, or at least an explanation
> of my reservations, but I've been sitting here for twenty minutes trying 
> to, when today I have an excess of infinitely more urgent tasks, so this 
> will have to wait till I have time to think.
> 

Basically, yes. The {le} is just to contrast with the {lo}, but the point is 
the same with {ro}, I think. And the quantifier rewrite seems right, taking 
sets as totalities of satisfying items (with a number of hidden clauses here 
having to do with relevance and preconditions -- not every food would fit 
since some are not plausible meals, etc.)

Now do consider this, which I take to be equivalent, but am blessed if I can 
prove it:
le I have ke'a for dinner ca ce'u cu depends on le contents of the fridge ca 
ce'uxino (I can't work out the way to otherwise correlate the {ce'u}:
all x all y if y is a possible dinner on x then for some z, y's being so is 
conditioned by z being in the fridge on x. 
Maybe it only amounts to the same thing, without being strictly equivalent.