On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 7:40 PM, And Rosta
<and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote:
Forgive the top-posting.
Here's my account of lV.
"la bcda fgha" acts semantically as if there is only one bcd. I.e. it's a myopic singularization (a term I invented in the salad days of my discussions with Jorge, tho by that I mean only that we were young, not that we were green in judgement).
It's some sort of collective entity that enters perception when squinting, yes. "Myopic singularization" is fine.
Hence it behaves like a constant. There are (rightly, IMO) no constants in Xorban, but their crucial logical property is that when there is only one X, some X is Y iff every X is Y; everything true of some X is true of every X.
I tried something like that yesterday and it doesn't work formally:
Assume def: li Ri Pi <=> jo si Ri Pi ri Ri Pi <=> jo ri Ri Pi si Ri Pi
It should follow that na li Ri Pi <=> li Ri na Pi
1) na li Ri Pi
2) def=> na jo si Ri Pi ri Ri Pi
3) => jo na si Ri Pi ri Ri Pi [or: jo si Ri Pi na ri Ri Pi]
4) => jo ri Ri na Pi na si Ri na Pi [or: jo na ri Ri na Pi si Ri na Pi]
5) => na jo ri Ri na Pi si Ri na Pi
6) => na li Ri na Pi
...which is the polar opposite of what we wanted.
The speaker of "la mlta xkra" isn't (necessarily) claiming that there is only one cat, that everything true of some cat is also true of every cat; rather, the speaker is presenting a linguistic representation of a state of affairs in which there is only one cat.