Re: McCawley

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

And:
> I have just discovered that my contention that the logical form
> of
>   Two people left.
>   Re prenu cu cliva.
> is
>   Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] y left
> is shared by James McCawley, in
[...]
> The authority for this contention is therefore as eminent as
> anyone could require.

The only reason why it seems to fail for Lojban is that {re prenu}
is supposed to mean _exactly_ two people, while in your expansion,
the existence of the set of cardinality 2 does not preclude the
existence of a superset of cardinality 3 whose members also all
leave. So for Lojban it would have to be:

   Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] y left
& ~Ex x is set & 3 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] y left

Given that, I don't think anyone would disagree with it. The
problem comes when you follow it with another quantifier. Does
it have coordinate or subordinate scope?

To simplify, let's use {su'ore} instead of the exact {re}. What
is {su'ore prenu cu cliva lo zdani}? It could be either
coordinate:

   Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ez Ay [y is in x] y left z
   Two people leave a house (the same one).

Or subordinate:

   Ex x is set & 2 is cardinality of x & Ay [y is in x] Ez y left z
   Two people leave a house (each their own).

In other words, does the second quantifier come before or after
the implicit "Ay" of "two people"? I don't think there is any reason
why one choice is more "logical" than the other, it's a matter of
convention. According to pc, the distinction is made by whether the
quantifiers are put in the prenex or not, but I would prefer it if
that didn't make a difference.

In English, it is ambiguous between the two meanings. It will depend
a lot on context. "Two people leave a house" sounds more probably
coordinate, but "two people are wearing a white dress" sounds
subordinate.

Jorge