First Translation Exercise

Answers (first 10)

 

Translate the following English sentences into Propositional  Logic. Use ">" for the horseshoe and "iff" for the triplebar. 

1. My father taught me to work, but not to love it. (Abraham Lincoln).
 

A: My father taught me to work.
B: My father taught me to love work.

(A & ~B)

2. Kindness is in our power, but fondness is not. (Samuel Johnson)

A: Kindness is in our power
B: Fondness is in our power.

(A & ~B)

3. But if you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. (Frank Lloyd Wright)
 

A: You wisely invest in beauty.
B: Beauty will remain with you all the days of our life.

(A ⊃ B)

4. It is not poetry, if it make no appeal to our passions or our imagination. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

A: It is poetry.
B: It appeals to our passions.
C: It appeals to our imagination.

(~B & ~C) ⊃ ~A

or translate as:

~(B v C) ⊃ ~A
 

5. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. (Thomas H. Huxley)

A: Size is grandeur
B: Territory makes a nation.

(~A & ~B)

6. If you build a castle in the air, you won't need a mortgage. (Philip Lazarus)

A: You build a castle in the air
B: You need a mortgage.

(A ⊃ ~B)

7. The mind itself, like other things, must sometimes be unbent or else it will be either weakened or broken. (Philip Sidney)
 

A: The mind must sometimes be unbent.
B: The mind will be weakened.
C: The mind will be broken.


(A v (B v C))

8. If you don't get what you want, it is a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price. (R. Kipling)

A: You get what you want.
B: It is a sign that you did seriously want it.
C: It is a sign that you tried to bargain over the price.


(~A ⊃ (~B v C))

9. The forces of a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. (J. Nehru)

A: The forces of a capitalist society are checked.
B:
The forces of a capitalist society tend to make the rich richer.
C:
The forces of a capitalist society tend to make the poor poorer.
 

(~A ⊃ (B & C))

10. Action does not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without it. ( Benjamin Disraeli)
 

A: Action always brings happiness.
B: There is happiness without action.

(~A & ~B)