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Jorge Llamb�as, On 28/08/2012 01:30:
On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 10:14 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote:Jorge Llamb�as, On 27/08/2012 01:40:On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 9:01 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote:2. I'd like to see a ternary quantifier with a fraction argument (where the fraction is "all", "some", "two in every three", "a lot" and so forth).Can't "je" handle this? Let's say "lt" means "a lot", then "la je lta mlta xkra", "a lot of cats are black".I meant "proportionally a lot; a large proportion of".What if "lt" means "is a large proportion of"? Then we can say: la xkra le mlte ltake Black ones of cats are a large proportion. Or: la mlta le lteka xkre Cats, a large proportion of them are black. Or: la le mlte ltake xkra
I'd rather be able to do without the vagueness of l, so instead have qa mlta qe xkre ltake "A large proportion of everything with the property of cathood has the property of being black" Alternatively, if qnt is quantifier and nmlt is "large proportion": lo nmltoqa mlta qe xkre qntokake
3. I would allow variables to be implicitly bound, so that "brda" with unbound "a" is short for "za brda", where "z" is unary existential quantifier. This would mean that in "(sa xrma (lu bjrafu vska'aku)) (xkra)", "xkra" is short for "za xkra".We already allow implicit binding. The proposed rule was that the free variable is implicitly bound by "l" with the same restriction that that same variable was bound last time it was used. Your example is thus equivalent to "(sa xrma (lu bjrafu vska'aku)) ([la xrma] (xkra))"I'd argue against this interpretation rule for two reasons. First, it means that to circumvent it you either have to use overt binding or have to search for a variable that has not previously been bound (within what span of text?). Second, the speaker-hearer should have to keep track only of syntactic binding, not keep a mental note ofall or some variable--restriction pairings in the prior text.What scope do you propose for an implicit s/z binding?
Minimal.
If it's minimal scope, then a single reserved variable should suffice,
suffice for what?
because each use will get its own binding except perhaps when used in the very same predicate, but then we would need a couple more of them. If it's not minimal, it will be a headache (like Lojban's unbound da).OK, I get that if you're going to have restricted quantifiers then {l} makes sense as a default restrictive quantifier. And restricted quantifiers are certainly needed for stuff like "most", "2 in every 3" and so forth, as in (2) above; and restricted quantification for "all" is convenient even if not necessary. But instead of "la grka xkra". why not "za je grka xkra"? (where z is unary s).I think it's a prctical way to distinguish what you're talking about from what you're saying about it.
If that really is a reason, then it's all the more reason to have unary counterparts that make it possible to avoid this "topic--comment" structure. But I'd be happy to acknowledge that "sa/la grka xkra" is shorter than "za je grka xkra", and that is good reason for s & l being as they are. --And.