Propositional Logic Symposia - [4] – Translating English into Logic

[VideCorSpoon]

Arjen,

I am very glad you now know what hostility I sensed.

But besides this, why is this the only conversation that has nothing constructive to lend to the topic?

[Arjen]

Originally Posted by VideCorSpoon

Arjen,

I am very glad you now know what hostility I sensed.

But besides this, why is this the only conversation that has nothing constructive to lend to the topic?

Ah, more hostility. Perhaps it is not constructive because you do not allow it to be?

[de_budding]

don’t argue because I’m not going to oblige you

-VideCorSpoon

Ha ha ha,

Dan.

[Holiday20310401]

Ok you know the statement "The songbirds will sing and the Owls will hoot, or the Eagles will scream".


You translate it to this. (S & O) v E

However, what's to say it can't be S & (O v E)? Can we establish a rule for determining the placement of brackets in comparison to the english?

Even though I somehow intuitively grasped the right answer I wonder why I did so, naturally.

What if the comma was moved to precede the 'and'. Is that the determinate of placing the brackets, or does the subjects affected by and take priority to the subject affected by or, and the brackets are placed for highest priority.

[VideCorSpoon]

That’s a good point.

If you translate “the songbirds will sing and the owls will hoot, or the eagles will scream” it will indeed translate into (S & O) v E. It could translate as S & (O v E), but it will not retranslate back into English… which is a key point that it is a faulty translation. If you retranslated S & (O v E), you would get “the songbirds will sing and either the owls will hoot or the eagles will scream.” So you can see that the two sentences are not the same. Correct placement of the parenthesis is vital. But also, when you are translating, look at the commas or semi-colons are in the sentences. This is usually an indicator that there is some sort of division in the logical sentence. I think it came naturally to you because you saw that comma as a division and understood proper logical syntax. That fantastic! When you start seeing thing like that, you are subconsciously putting yourself in a logical frame of mind which does nothing but help you create more logical and cogent sentences.

If the comma was moved before the and, I would suppose that there would then be some ground for the sentence to translate into S & (O v E) supposing that the comma between hoot and or is removed. Otherwise, it might not be a well formed sentence. Certainly, it would be a well formed formula, but syntactically not good.

Is the comma the determinate of the brackets? Yes and no. Good observation. It depends on how the sentence is laid out. Commas are usually a good determinate that there is a break or a conditional nearby. Thinking about it, the more you become acquainted with syntactical structure and logical structure, the easier it will be discern what goes where.

Darn good point though.