Subject: Re: [lojban] translation challenge: "If today is Monday..."

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:05:45 -0400 (EDT)

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 [email-masked]
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