[Attempto] Every call C is urgent or C is important. -- minor bug

[Joshua TAYLOR]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 8:36 AM, Jean-Marc Vanel
<jeanmarc.vanel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
> This sentence is not well understood :
>
> Every call C is urgent or C is important.
>
> Paraphrase
> If there is a call X1 then the call X1 is urgent or something is important.
>
> It's not just the paraphrase, the DRS is wrong too.
>
> Note that the same sentence after dropping the variable is well understood :
> Every call  is urgent or  is important.


This post just caught my eye.  The original English "Every call C is
urgent or C is important" doesn't sound right to me (as English).
Notice that you'll get the same DRS from  "Every call C is urgent or C
is important." and "Every call C is urgent or D is important." And
note that the paraphrase for "D is important." is  "There is something
X1.  X1 is important." I think it's just a matter that the universally
quantified C doesn't have scope in the second half of the sentence, "C
is important."

However, there are some better sounding English alternatives for (what
seems to be) the desired result:

For every call C C is urgent or C is important.
Every call C is urgent or is important.

//JT


-- 
Joshua Taylor, http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~tayloj/