Help Please!

Share on Facebook

Roro

#107847 Sun, 12 Jun 05 08:58 AM

Hello LanguageLover, and thank you for your kind words.
I've read before your posts for several times. They gave me very good impression. I've never thought that English is your second language.

I'm not a linguist yet ... so I will learn a lot from you! Thank you.

Roro

Joined on Mon, Apr 11 2005

Regular Member (581)

LanguageLover

#107855 Sun, 12 Jun 05 09:27 AM

And you are so down to earth. I like that. I started a thread with the subject "Hi Roro" in the same linguistic section.
Cheers,

LanguageLover

Joined on Fri, Feb 25 2005

A proud Iranian living in the UAE

Contributing Member (1,393)

The similarities among the languages are more than their differences!

Roro

#108000 Sun, 12 Jun 05 04:33 PM

Hello muratsekerci, and sorry for my slow reply. It's not that I forgot your question, ... simply ... I'm not a specialist at all yet in formal semantics, and I'm in the course of thought, to which I'm accustomed.
I'd like to answer to your question, one by one, if you're not in a hurry.
See you. Roro

Roro

#108177 Mon, 13 Jun 05 02:45 AM

Hello muratsekerci.

Question A. a. Necessarily, no two presidents of the U.S. look alike.
---------------------------------------------------------------
No two presidents of the U.S. ever looked alike.

Your Answer: a) Modal Logic
Necessarily, no two presidents of the U.S. look alike.
?x?y(President(x) ? President(y) ? x?y ? ?z(President(z) ? (z=x V z=y)) ? (??LookAlike(x,y)))

muratsekerci, I'm sorry, I don't know the translation of . I've learned only or . When you know the answer, please kindly tell me the answer!

As to the solution, we maybe need not to translate this proposition, I think. Simply put the proposition as f, and

? f ? f

I think this captures the validity of argument.
I'm not so sure: I ignored temporal factor here, although there is in the choices an item .

Roro

Modals, Translation

Roro

#108179 Mon, 13 Jun 05 03:06 AM

Question A. b. There is no unicorn.
-----------------------------
It is possible that John is seeking a unicorn.

Your Answer: b) Intensional Logic
There is no unicorn = ?(?P[?x[Unicorn(x) ? P(x)]))
It is possible that John is seeking a unicorn. = ?(ˆ ?x(Unicorn(x) ? Seek(john,x))

Hi muratsekerci. Your choice is right, but there're minor mistakes. I think ...

There is no unicorn = ?(?P[?x[Unicorn(x) ? P(x)]]) ... this is not a proper translation.

It would be better: ??x[Unicorn(x) ? ?P(x)]
(NB: this ? is an extensional operator)

And the sentence is an ambiguous sentence. It has two readings: de dicto & de re reading. Here we should consider the de dicto one, I suppose, thus:
? (seek*(j, ˆ?P?x(Unicorn(x) ? ?P(x)))

------------------------------- thus ------------------------------------------------------------
??x[Unicorn(x) ? ?P(x)]
? (seek*(j, ˆ?P?x(Unicorn(x) ? ?P(x)))
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I made a mistake, please kindly tell me about it. I will appreciate that.

Roro

Translation

Roro

#108180 Mon, 13 Jun 05 03:07 AM

c) is correct.

Roro

#108181 Mon, 13 Jun 05 03:09 AM

I think d) is correct, too.

Roro

#108187 Mon, 13 Jun 05 04:12 AM

Hello muratsekerci. Can I ask you a question?
There are something that I cannot understand yet. In your first post, you added ... or edited:

Instead of recursive definitions, let us use a (context-free) phrase-structure grammar of the sort linguists are accustomed to in order to specify the syntax of L1E

Syntax of L1E
N -> Sadie
N -> Liz
N -> Hank

Vi -> snores
Vi -> sleeps
Vi -> is-boring etc.etc.

How and why?

Roro

Grammar

Roro

#108239 Mon, 13 Jun 05 10:10 AM

Hello
Could anybody explain it please ... ?
I really need some explanation.
Why did they .. and other parts .. appear right in front of my eyes?
When I was writing my answer to muratsekerci?

Roro

1 2 3 4 5