From cowan@ccil.org Fri Oct 26 06:05:56 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: cowan@mercury.ccil.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 26 Oct 2001 13:05:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 58603 invoked from network); 26 Oct 2001 13:05:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.222 with QMQP; 26 Oct 2001 13:05:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mercury.ccil.org) (192.190.237.100) by mta2 with SMTP; 26 Oct 2001 13:05:44 -0000 Received: from cowan by mercury.ccil.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 15x6gD-0006by-00 for ; Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:05:45 -0400 Subject: Re: [lojban] translation challenge: "If today is Monday..." In-Reply-To: from And Rosta at "Oct 15, 2001 02:37:21 pm" To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:05:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Profile: johnwcowan And Rosta scripsit: > We can ditch the deictics, though. If they're a redherring: Statements about singular terms always turn out to be universal, though: > A. "If Jorge had been born in Warsaw, he'd be a British citizen" > = false > > B. "Jorge is british or not born in Warsaw" > = true > > C. we could change A to: > "Everyone is british or not born in Warsaw" > = false > > but A and C are not equivalent, and we may be wishing to make > a claim only about Jorge, not about everyone. But "Socrates is mortal" = "Everything that is a Socratizer is mortal". So with properly chosen predicates like "is a Socratizer", we can dispose of all singular terms in favor of universal quantifications. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Please leave your values | Check your assumptions. In fact, at the front desk. | check your assumptions at the door. --sign in Paris hotel | --Miles Vorkosigan