Re: [engelang] reformulating the core grammar

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In "sa bbbe ccci", we have two distinct problems: unbound "e" and "i",
> and "a" bound uselessly. The former problem we have discussed at some
> length with solutions:

[...]

> We all know who supports what on that. Of the other problem, it's
> tempting to me to want to declare it ungrammatical,

I don't see a reason to make it ungrammatical, since it clearly has
meaning (even if not a very useful meaning).

"sa bbbe ccci" has the same truth value as "je bbbe ccci". The
variable "a" is just wasted there, but I don't think there can be any
doubt as to the meaning: "For some a for which bbbe is true (i.e.
anything if bbbe is true and nothing if bbbe is false) it is the case
that ccci", A pointless use of "a", but not meaningless.

> but if we were
> determined to try to make sense of it, it might be something like,
>
> sa bbbe ccci
> sa [le sme] [je pseka] bbbe [li smi] [je psika] ccci
> "There exists an A pertaining to bbb E such that A pertains to ccc I.
>
> ... which is not at all necessarily good, but may be the best thing we
> might make of a bad sentence.

I don't see the need for anything that complicated. That may well be a
connotation of that sentence, but surely not part of its proper
meaning.

"sa R P" is truth functionally equivalent to "sa sma je R P", and I
see no reason to exclude from these the contrived cases where R (or P)
don't contain a free a.

Similarly "ra bbbe ccci" is truth functionally equivalent to "ja na bbbe ccci".

co ma'a xrxe