[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

guaspi any (was: RE: Digest Number 135



John:
> > > xo: one or more individuals, it matters not which
> > > xw: the set containing one or more individuals, it matters not which
> >
> > ... Intensional?
> >
> > You mean, Carter got this right years two decades before we did? Aaargh!
>
> Well, the example he gives is "Hand me nails".  Here he wants one or more
> nails, but it doesn't matter which nails.  Ditto, of course, for "Hand me
> a screwdriver."

My first thought was "But that's obviously merely a question of the
scope of the existential quantifier" ("Bring it about that there are
nails that you hand me" v. "There are nails that I command you hand
me"), but I then wondered what

  "A minute ago, I ate an apple (any apple)"

would mean. If you could find a sensible interpretation for that, then
the guaspi gadri would be vindicated. I think the only sensical interpretation
is to read it as Unique: if "I ate x" is true of
any apple, and if x is an apple, then there must be exactly one
apple.

But guaspi has other gadri for Mr Shark, so I still reckon it got
things wrong.

> > (But did he allow quantification? So can you still distinguish between
> > transparent and opaque with xa vs. xo?)
>
> Gua\spi quantifies with full predicates, but xa means "rolo" as I noted above

I wish that Loglan had had the good sense to use jimc's ideas, instead
of casting him out as a heretic. One can't argue that the deficiencies
of Lojban are just because nobody had come up with better ways to do
things, since jimc patently had. I suppose that Lojban's excuse was
that it was constituted to just finish of JCB Loglan and no more than
that, except in the addition of sundry sorts of cruft like attitudinals
that Lojbab now and again crows about.

--And.