Subject: Re: [lojban] More about quantifiers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 11:54:38 EST

In a message dated 3/13/2002 7:12:37 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> "ro da ga broda gi na brode" is effectively nonimporting, since it
> doesn't entail "da brode". 
> 
> Perhaps "ro lu'a lo'i broda" is not importing either -- I don't think 
> that's
> been discussed at all.
> 

Well, the first is long and (consequently?) ugly and does not allow the 
distinction as subject of {broda} and {naku broda}. The second, as xorxes 
says, turns out to meaningless (and probably falsifying) if lo'i broda is 
null. I like xorxes minimalist {ni'u}, which immediately projects to {ganai 
de broda gi}.

<I have to concede that, from my *severely* limited knowledge of
restricted quantification, r.q. is importing, so if "da poi" is, as the
syntax obviously suggests, r.q., then "ro da poi ke'a broda" entails 
"su'o da broda". And if "lo broda" is an abbreviation of "da poi ke'a 
broda" then "ro broda" must entail "su'o da broda".

So, although my dialect is the same as Jorge's, I think I shall have
to switch sides to pc, and declare myself to have been Wrong.

I am fairly confident that this entire thread will have zero effect on
usage, but the participants seem to have derived pleasure from it,
which is enough.>

Moving you into the imporeting column is quite enough of an accomplishment 
for a discussion. Pleasure does not enter, alas; there is too much 
frustration (exasperation?) for that. But excitement is also a nice thing to 
have from time to time.

<You could see "no" in both English and Lojban as having its
existence justified by virtue of it being a number, rather than being an 
abbreviation of "not some". That argument would be stronger for Lojban 
than for English.>

But not historically, since English had the "no" long before 0 was a number 
(in every possible reading of that phrase).

xorxes:
<>{ro lu'a lo'i broda}
For me it is not importing. I think pc might say {ro lu'a lo'i broda}
is nonsense when {lo'i broda} is the empty set.>

And so he does, "every member of an empty set" just makes no sense, since 
there aren't any.

<I wouldn't know how to check that. Would you say for example that
this page is wrong:

http://www.wabash.edu/depart/Phil/classmaterials/Phil3F99/Phil3txt/Phil3txt7/P

hil3txt73/Phil3txt733.html

When it moves very freely from restricted form (Ax:Sx)Px
to unrestricted Ax(Sx->Px)>

If you check other pages, you will find that Helman is not dealing with 
restricted quantification as such but using the notation as a stage in the 
process of translating English into symbols in ordinatry first-order logic. 
Once the block attached to the quantifier is correctly filled in, the whole 
can then be correctly moved into the formula in the usual way. But the 
"restricted quantifier" (as the regular use of "thing" suggests) is just a 
passing phase of translation, not a part of the logic.

<. I think the introduction of the +/- notation in this
round of the discussion was a big step forward, as we can now
avoid the "A entails I, no it doesn't, yes it does" silliness.
Everybody agrees that A+ entails I+ and that A- does not
entail I+.>

I agree and also think that the {ni'u} development of that idea is very 
valuable. Alas, I fear that agreeing about As and Is will not yet help us to 
agree about {ro} and {su'o} even in ultimate forms ({ro} does always imply 
{su'o} and you can work it out, but that is unconvincing somehow to some).