Re: small universe consequences

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

la .and. cusku di'e

> My understanding is that "zohe" is an existentially quantified variable
> which is specified only as being an instance of a maximally unrestricted
> category - that is, the sentence "gerku" means "zohe gerku zohe" which
> means "Ex Ey: x a dog of species y".

No, that is "da gerku de".  "zo'e" is not necessarily existentially quantified;
its quantification has to be glorked from context.

> But "zohe" doesn't make the bridi true: what makes it true is the
> existence of some x and some y such that x is a dog and y is its species.

That is the most probable interpretation, I suppose; but not the only
possible one.  In plain fact, sentences with explicit or implicit "zo'e"
can't be logically transformed with perfect reliability: one must employ
the context to provide explicit values for the "zo'e"s.

> I would call my version of it a grammar rule. The rule of zohe insertion,
> and its semantics, are rules of grammar.

There has been a tendency in the Loglan Project to use "grammar rule" to
mean only "one of the PS rules which define the language's surface structure."
I believe this tendency is at the root of the misunderstanding.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.