Talk:Prepositions

From WikiIslam

[edit] Clarification please?

Baal, can you please explain this for me: If I say: "Take the Orange OR the Apple", then I mean take one or the other or Both.

This does not make sense to me. Check this:

1. Sanitarium: Baal: Take the Orange OR the Apple (this means I want you to take either one OR the other; NOT both)

2. Sanitarium:Baal: Take One Apple AND Another Apple (this means I want you to take both with no condition)

3. Sanitarium:: Baal: Take One Apple AND Two Apples; provided you can eat them all (this means, provided you can eat all the apples, I want you to take one and then after that, another two; totalling three apples)

4. Sanitarium:: Baal: Take One Apple OR Two Apples, provided you can eat them all (this means I want you to take one apple, but you can take two apples (total) provided you can eat both of them.) My point is, I don't understand how your statement above means I want you to take BOTH; you would need to add a condition in order for your analogy to work.

What do you think? Sanitarium 22:35, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

I renumbered these for clarity.

1. "Take the Orange OR the Apple" really means take one Orange, one Apple, or both. Baal is right. In logic, this is the OR condition.

1a. "Take EITHER the Orange OR the Apple" means take only one or the other. This is what Sanitarium is trying to say. This is XOR (exclusive OR) condition. The difference between OR and XOR is often overlooked in informal speech.

2. "Take one Apple and another Apple" means take two apples unconditionally. Sanitarium is right.

3. "Take one Apple and two Apples" has three meanings. If these are separate events (i.e., two different sets of Apples or two mutually exclusive draws from one set of Apples), it means take THREE Apples. If the event of taking one Apple is contained in the event of taking two Apples, then the "one Apple" is an unnecessary tautology and the sentences means "take TWO Apples". If the event of taking one Apple may or not be contained in the event of taking two Apples, then it means take two or three Apples. The key is to define what these events are.

4. "Take one Apple or two Apples" is satisfied by taking one or two Apples.

See Wikipedia truth table.

A Student 19:07, 1 December 2008 (PST)

Correct anything on the article as you like. Sanitarium said she wouldnt be back on the wiki. --Whale 07:24, 2 December 2008 (PST)

[edit] Criticism

I think it is rather fool-hearty to resort to such simple logic to interpret the Quran. The Arabic language, as we know, has so many more conditions and definitions than the English language that it might be confusing to a beginner. I am not an experienced Arabic speaker, but in defense of the verse 4:3, I can say this: It litterally translates to:

فَانكِحُواْ مَا طَابَ لَكُم مِّنَ النِّسَاء مَثْنَى وَثُلاَثَ وَرُبَاعَ

"So marry what seemed good for you from (the women) in (groups of) two and (groups of) three and (groups of) four"...

The key here is to understand the group concept used in the verse, I do not see any mathematical or linguistic justification for the initiator's explanation.