Grammarian-Bot
Jul 18, 2006, 03:42 AM
Pleas can someone help me with the "Distribution of Categorical terms". I've read the text about it but still I can't understand the when a proposition refers to all the elements in a class and when it doesn't.
Eg.
1. All S are P.
Here they say that S is distributed and P is not. This one is clear since they are talking about all of the S but about a fraction (a small part) of P.
2. No S are P.
Now this one drives me crazy. They say here both S and P are Distributed. I can see why S is distributed. But to me here P again seems Undistributed. Eg. If we state a concrete example such as "All cows are not mammals". Now here I can't understand how This proposition refers to all the elements of the Predicate "mammals".
3. Some S are P.
This one is clear to me. Both remain undistributed.
4. Some S are not P.
Here I have the same problem as that in "2".
Eg.
1. All S are P.
Here they say that S is distributed and P is not. This one is clear since they are talking about all of the S but about a fraction (a small part) of P.
2. No S are P.
Now this one drives me crazy. They say here both S and P are Distributed. I can see why S is distributed. But to me here P again seems Undistributed. Eg. If we state a concrete example such as "All cows are not mammals". Now here I can't understand how This proposition refers to all the elements of the Predicate "mammals".
3. Some S are P.
This one is clear to me. Both remain undistributed.
4. Some S are not P.
Here I have the same problem as that in "2".