‘There is no A without B’, which one is the antecedent？ I’m reading a statement that: “in nature, there is no representation without evolution, and perhaps there is no evolution beyond a certain point without the capacity to represent the world.” My understanding is roughly like this If there is no evolution, then there is no representation.… But the translations (English to Chinese) suggested by translate engines both from Bing and Google are just the opposite of my understanding, they are roughly like If there is no representation, then there is no evolution. It makes me confused. In the sentence like ‘There is no A without B’, which one is the antecedent, and which is the outcome?

A Story of the Machine that Spits Beans There was a village. A family made up a machine which could always put out different bean while fed with different stuff. Since then, with the machine, the village to be more prosperous day by day. One day, a child put into with the bean which was put out by the machine itself, then, it was just running incessantly but couldn’t put out any bean. Finally, the people had to take it apart to pick the bean out and then return to normal. After that, The elders set the rule up: Never put the beans back into the machine. It was ended, for the people who utilize the machine. The family who made the machine heard about this, however, to be very upset. They tried painstakingly, wanted to make a more perfect machine which couldn’t be in trouble by feeding into the beans spitted itself meanwhile kept that, just like the original, what bean out as what stuff in. For that, a lot of smartest guys worked to vomited blood, but never got a satisfactory outcome. The machine, what the people in the village couldn’t live without, was called as formal logic. The family made the machine, known as logician.

Some usages of 'of' that make me confused The 'of' in such the sentences makes me confused: 1) A definition of truth can be obtained in a very simple way from that of another semantic notion, namely, of the notion of satisfaction. 2) Their formal structure is analogous to that of sentences; however, they may contain the so-called free variables, which cannot occur in sentences. I don't well understand about the use of "that of": It seems a little redudant and somehow can be understood, roughly, without it, like the follows: "be obtained ... from that of another semantic notion" -- "be obtained ... from another semantic notion" "is analogous to that of sentences" -- "is analogous to sentences" Is that all right? Would you like to explain it more please?Hi! Dear Bruce, Thank you very much for your detailed explaination. I read it many times, but I still have some confusion yet. Inspired to your explanation, however, I got an understanding that the THAT in the two sentences are perhaps not reffered to ALL the subjects but PART of the. For example, it seems the ‘that’ in the second sentence is reffered to the ‘formal structure’ (but not ‘their formal structure’), like this: “Their formal structure is analogous to that [formal structure] of sentences;” And for the first sentence, it seems it can be well understood like this: “A definition of truth can be obtained in a very simple way from that [definition] of another semantic notion, namely, of the notion of satisfaction.” Such the understanding seems quite adequate to the ideas in the paper. (in my understanding so far)Correction: "not reffered to ALL the subjects but PART of the." It ought to be "not reffered to ALL the subjects but PART of them."

Whould you like to analyse the text? Just read this text at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/ Many theories of truth are like the neo-classical correspondence theory in being as much theories of how truth-bearers are meaningful as of how their truth values are fixed.I don't understand especilly related to the "as" ... "as". I think the structure of the statement may be as: (Many theories of truth) are (like the neo-classical correspondence theory in being) as much theories (of how truth-bearers are meaningful) as (of how their truth values are fixed.) In which the last 'their' refers to the 'much theories'. Isn't it? I'm not sure.Or, like this: (Many theories of truth) are (like the neo-classical correspondence theory) in being as much (theories of how truth-bearers are meaningful) as (of how their truth values are fixed).

What is a mass noun? For example, 'functionality' is marked as a [mass noun]. What is [mass noun]?ah... I'm not sure if the expression is appropriate? It's shown on a dictionary with that label as following: noun [mass noun] 1. .... 2. ....

help please: don't understand the sentence. "The central point for me is the much greater possibility than is ordinarily realized of that developing an adequately detailed formal theory of these matters." confused to the use of "than" in the sentence...Oh, sorry I make a mistakes when typing the sentenc. There is not the "that", the original sentence is: "The central point for me is the much greater possibility than is ordinarily realized of developing an adequately detailed formal theory of these matters."

Talking about the things in "sth of sth else" For example, about "parts of machines": there are different parts of different machines, each part is belonged to a machine. We may say 1. to ask about a part for the thing it's belonged to - Which/what machine is the thing the (a) part is belonged to? (Which forms of sentences can be used here to express such the question?) 2. sometimes it needs to talk it very generally without such as "machine", "belong", even "thing", for example, - One may need to know, for any part, what is that a part of? or, what is that it of? (Is this a simple, right, even good sentence in certain contexts?)

"part of" vs. "parts of" There is a word from a published paper: -it needs to be discussed with respect to two artefacts that are part of an abstraction relation. Q1. Should the "part of" be "parts of"? Q2. For the fact "two artifacts form one part of sth", can I say "the two artifacts is a part of sth"?

The usage of 'refer to': Are these sentences right? I'm not sure to use 'refer to' for the meaning of a term. Fox example, in some field, the term 'enterprise' is defined as "one or more organizations sharing a definite mission, goals, and objectives to offer an output such as a product or service." In this context, I made some sentences with 'refer to' as follows: 1a. Here, the term 'enterprise' is referred to some organization. 1b. Here, the term 'enterprise' is used to refer to some organization. Chinese: 这里，术语'enterprise'（用来）指某种组织。 Are both correct? 2. The word 'enterprise' may refer to two meanings: organization or the alliance, and project or undertaking. (or "may be referred to"?) Chinese: 'Enterprise'一词可以指两种意思：组织或其联盟和项目或事业。 3. Here, the organizations are referred to as enterprises. (= called) Chinese: 那些组织被称为企业。