Subject: Re: [lojban] More about quantifiers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 16:25:28 EST

In a message dated 3/14/2002 2:50:12 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> > ><
> > > ro broda su'o brode cu brodi
> > > = no broda me'iro da poi brode cu brodi >
> >
> >I forget what my system is supposed by you to be.
> 
> The one you have been advocating: + for the {Q broda}
> forms and - for the {Q da poi broda} forms.
> 

Oh, that one! But I ditched that a couple of days ago (I lose track of how 
long because of the high rate of messages). I actually meant, what 
arrangement of + and - among AEIO.

<>But in any case, I don't
>quite follow the identity you propose:

You're right, I meant to start with {ro broda ro brode
cu brodi}. Sorry about that>

'Sall right. You still haven't made enough of that kind of mistake to catch 
up with me.

<The universal/particular, positive/negative characteristics
can be changed while we retain the meaning of the sentence.
The import cannot be changed. That's why I asked what you
meant by "actual quantifier". There is no fixed quantifier
for a given meaning, but there is a fixed import.>

Interesting. That is a useful thing to notice. What it means in terms of 
the system I am currently proposing is that the import condition, whichever 
it is (but usually + ) is a presupposition, that is goes on the front of the 
sentence after all the other operations are done -- hence the ease of moving 
negations arount -- the move only in the matrix, not the prefix.

<You now seem to favour a system with + import for everything
though. At least that means we agree that {Q broda} is
equivalent to {Q da poi broda}.>

Yes, &'s comments on that seem to me totally compelling (and it is the system 
I wanted originally anyhow). The equation has to ahve &'s caveats, though: 
if {Q broda} is a {Q da poi broda}, but not conversely. But, if both are 
possible, they are equivalent.

<Well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I am
not alone in my non-standardness. (I guess I was lucky that
doing a search in the web, the first definition I got for
"restricted quantification" was the one I was using.)>

I've found a couple of other places that use "restricted quantification" in 
this way, still mainly as a translation device (for which it works rather 
well, I find as I play with it -- shortens some steps in the procedure). 
What I call "restricted quantification" still occurs with that name, but more 
of it seems to be under "many-sorted" or "many-sortal quantification." When 
I started using the term, 30 years ago or so, the situation was different, 
because no one was using "restricted quantification" in the currently popular 
(apparently) way.