Subject: quantifiers

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 19:27:57 -0000

pycyn on his web site:

>Lojban, following the modernest of logics, fell in with this 
>scheme. Although it has several ways of saying "All S is P," they 
>are all equivalent and all ultimately the first:
>
>roda zo'u ganai da S gi da P
>
>roda poi S cu P
>
>ro lo S cu P
>
>ro S cu P
>
>I have argued several times over a quarter century that at least one 
>of these (I like {roda poi S}) should be used in the existential 
>import sense, so that, say, {roda poi S cu P} entails {dapoi S cu P}.

I don't think that that will work, since "ro lo" is really equivalent 
to "ro da poi ke'a" and not "ro da poi". For example, "everything I 
want to eat" would have to be "ro da poi mi djica le nu citka ke'a", 
and can't be converted to a "ro lo" form.

For a universal quantifier with existential import, I think we can 
use "rosu'o"/"su'oro", parallel to "roci", etc. for "all three". (Is 
there any convention for which number goes first in these compound 
quantifiers?)

(The book seems to think that lojban universal claims have 
existential import, ch. 16, sec. 8 [p. 399])

mu'o mi'e adam