Why does "Some student has asked every faculty member a question" translate to <mi mathvariant="

Brooke Webb

Brooke Webb

Answered question

2022-05-21

Why does "Some student has asked every faculty member a question" translate to y ( F ( y ) x ( S ( x ) A ( x , y ) ) ) ?
Context: I'm in undergrad discrete math, this is a textbook question from Discrete Mathematics and its Applications 7th edition
Here's the question:
Let S(x) be the predicate "x is a student," F(x) the predicate "x is a faculty member," and A(x, y) the predicate "x has asked y a question," where the domain consists of all people associated with your school. Use quantifiers to express the following statement.
Some student has asked every faculty member a question.
This is what the textbook says is the correct answer:
y ( F ( y ) x ( S ( x ) A ( x , y ) ) )
I mostly understand how this is correct, but shouldn't it be instead of ?

Answer & Explanation

dariajoq9

dariajoq9

Beginner2022-05-22Added 14 answers

Step 1
Further to Mark's answer, whose correction
x ( S ( x ) y ( F ( y ) A ( x , y ) )
I second:
Some student has asked every faculty member a question.
This is what the textbook says is the answer:
y ( F ( y ) x ( S ( x ) A ( x , y ) ) ) .
I mostly understand how this is correct, but shouldn't it be instead of ?
Step 2
1. By flipping the to an ,, the book's suggested answer becomes “every faculty member has been asked, by some student, a question”, which is still wrong (here, I disagree with Mark that this new answer is merely an unnatural interpretation of the given English sentence).
Notice that the book's suggested answer is logically equivalent to y ( F ( y ) x A ( x , y ) ) x S ( x ) ,,
i.e., “Either every faculty member has been asked, by someone in the domain of discourse (perhaps a janitor), a question, or there is some student”, which is of course egregiously incorrect.
Charity Daniels

Charity Daniels

Beginner2022-05-23Added 2 answers

Step 1
Note that bounded quantifiers are translated as follows:
"There exists some student x such that P(x)" is translated as x ( S ( x ) P ( x ) ).
"For all faculty members y, P(y)" is translated as y ( F ( y ) P ( y ) ).
In my view, the obvious meaning of this sentence is that there exists a student x such that for all faculty members y, x has asked y a question. That is, x ( S ( x ) y ( F ( y ) A ( x , y ) ).
Step 2
The alternate interpretation (and in my view the less natural interpretation of the English phrase) is that for all faculty members y, there exists a student x such that x has asked y a question. This is translated as y ( F ( y ) x ( S ( x ) A ( x , y ) ).
So as you say, it should be and not .

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