Re: non-existance predications

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

la lojbab cusku di'e
> Since the "na" has scope of the entire bridi, there is no problem.  It
> converts to "naku lo crida zo'u lo crida cu zasti" "It is not the case
> that:  for something that is a fairy, that fairy exists."

Does it work like that?  What ties the {lo crida} in the prenex with the
one in the body of the phrase?  As I understand it they are independent,
just like {lo prenu cu prami lo prenu} does not say that some person
loves themself, only that some person loves some person.

You'd have to say something like {naku lo crida zo'u:  cy zasti} to get
what you want.  What you wrote means "it is not the case that for some
fairy, some fairy exists."

> The problem arises if you have a selbri which requires non-existance.

I think the problem is treating the existence of reference as some other
kind of existence.

> Let us say that "nalzasti" is such a selbri (at one time "xanri" had
> this meaning).  Then:  "lo crida cu nalzasti" could cause a problem if
> there are no such things as fairies.

Depends what you mean by {nalzasti}.  Is it true that {noda nalzasti}?
Is {lo'i nalzasti} the empty set?  If yes, then {lo crida cu nalzasti}
has to be false, but I don't think you want {lo'i nalzasti} to be the
empty set, it probably has an infinite number of elements.

> I'm not sure it does, because for
> me, the equivalent "lo crida zo'u lo crida cu nalzasti", the prenexing
> in the "lo crida" form contains no stronger claim of existence than it
> does in the main text.  But in the "da poi" form there is a clear
> problem:  da poi crida zo'u da nalzasti clearly is false because you
> have postulated the existance of da in the prenex, then said that da
> not-exists, contradicting yourself.

No, the existence postulated in the prenex is merely one of reference.
If there is a predicate, and the predicate is not meaningless, then I
don't see how it can be referentially empty.

> Question for pc then:  in standard logic, does a non-quantified variable
> in the prenex claim its existance, or merely cite a variable without
> claiming reference.

What is a non-quantified variable?  How can you have such a thing?
There was a nice word that pc used once (syncategorematic or something
of the sort, I don't remember exactly) which is more or less what {ke'a}
is (both in relative clauses and as I propose to use it with {ka}) but
you can't have a non-quantified variable in the prenex, at least it
doesn't make any sense to me.

> If the latter, then we have identified a slight,
> almost trivial, difference between lo broda and da poi broda.

I don't see it.  There are differences in practical terms, you can
specify an inner quantifier with {lo}, and you can use {da} as many
times as you want with one quantification, but there is no difference
from the quantificational point of view.

Jorge