Subject: Re: [lojban] quantifiers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 21:20:36 EDT

In a message dated 5/31/2001 2:39:36 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> 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", 
> 
{ke'a} only turns up if needed, i.e. if the sumti to which {poi} attaches is 
not in the first place, so that is not what is special here. It may be that 
it cannot be put in {lo} form, in which case, this partiuclar subject will 
not use that {rolo} version. That is, of course, one of the reasons for 
having several ways of saying the same thing, but, in this case, the first 
does always work (I think -- until someone fadges up a contrary case).

<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?)>

I like the idea, but I wonder if it will work. {roci broda} comes in stages 
from {ro lo ci lo broda} as far as I can remember (and this explains the 
order); I think that (ro lo su'o lo broda} collapses to {lo broda}

<(The book seems to think that lojban universal claims have 
existential import, ch. 16, sec. 8 [p. 399])>
Why, so it does! I can't help feeling that this statement is contradicted 
elsewhere in the relevant sense. That is, as noted, {roda Q} always does 
entail {su'o da Q}, but an unchanged Q may mean that {su'o da Q} is nothing 
like "Some S is P" -- if Q is a conditional, for example, it does not 
magically change to a conjunction. If this really is uniformly covered, I 
take the Emma Litella line.