Re: mamta be ma

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

la xorxes. cusku di'e

> You are requiring that the {ro} be actually transported to the prenex,
> and ignored in the body. This never happens. In general, if you explicitly
> write the word {ro} in the body, you override the prenex, so
> 
> [1] ro da su'o de zo'u de prami ro da
> For every x, there is a y, such that y loves every x.
> 
> Is equivalent to:
> 
> [2] de prami ro da
> There is a y that loves every x.
> 
> The {roda} in the prenex is cancelled by the subsequent quantification.
> (I may be wrong about this, but I think not.)

I believe you get the right result in this case, but for the wrong reason.
Once a da-series variable is bound in a prenex, further quantification is
actually selection, so in your example 1, the second "ro da" is to be read
"all of the X's."  For a (slightly) more useful example, consider:

3)	ci da poi jukpa zo'u re da slabu mi
	There are three cooks such that two of them are familiar to me.

As it is a fuzzy question just what the limit of a binding is, sometimes a
requantification may be a totally fresh rebinding rather than a subselection.
Formally, a binding lasts only through the current bridi plus any following
bridi tacked on with sentence logical connectives; in practice, it may persist
longer in the absence of conflicts.  "da'o" may be used to clear up all
ambiguity.

In this sense, then, the da-series variables are two-faced: before binding, they
act like -specific sumti, with default quantification "su'o"; after binding,
they act like +specific sumti, with default quantification "ro".  Thus, in:

4)	su'opanono da poi cukta mi nelci da
	For each of at least 100 X's which are books, I like X
	I like (at least) 100 books.

an equivalent form is:

5)	su'opanono da poi cukta mi nelci ro da
	For each of at least 100 X's which are books, I like (each of) X.

At least, so it seems to me now.  But this is not a definitive pronouncement,
and I don't think there have been any really definitive ones.

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