Help me diagram a sentence, please

Rev_Lefe

During my drills, I was really confused by the following sentence that I made up myself.
(I knew it might not make sense in scientific terms, please bear with me.)

"All genetic material is contributed by every female gamete."

Thanks!

Logician

GM —> CEFG

Where GM = genetic material
CEFG = contributed by every female gamete.

So if it’s genetic material, you know it’s been contributed to by every female gamete. If it’s not contributed to by every female gamete, you know it’s not genetic material.

Rev_Lefe

Thanks Logician. i am still a bit confused since the sentence has two universal indicators. So I was unable to decide which one should be the sufficient condition. Could you explain your diagraming rationale a little further?

Also, how would you diagram the following variation?
"Genetic material is contributed by every female gamete."

btownsquee

"All genetic material is contributed by every female gamete."

I would say this is a biconditional.

if it is genetic material, then it was contributed by female gamete
if it is female gamete, then it contributed genetic material

Therefore biconditional!

genetic material <---> female gamete

"Genetic material is contributed by every female gamete."

This applies to your second sentence also.

justinslc

"Every" in both examples isn't functioning as a logical operator because it is an adjective describing female gametes. In this case, "every" or all female gametes. In the first example, you are left with this: GM —> CEFG

While "All" leads you to put Genetic Material on the sufficient side of your conditional statement, it can also be seen as an adjective describing "genetic material." In that case, "Is" becomes the logical operator and you are left with the same translation: GM —> CEFG

In other words, if there is Genetic Material, there is a Contribution from Every Female Gamete.

The same holds for the second example: "Genetic material is contributed by every female gamete."

Without "all" you are just left with "Genetic Material." And the logical operator is "is." It translates like this: GM —> CEFG

Another way to think about it is that, according to either sentence, in order for Genetic Material to exist, there must be a contribution from every female gamete. Furthermore, if there is a contribution to Genetic Material, it came from Every Female Gamete. The contribution from every female gamete is necessary and so, belongs on the necessary side of a conditional diagram.

On the other hand, Female Gametes can exist without contributing to genetic material. The contribution is not necessary for "every female gamete." This sentence only makes the contribution necessary for the Genetic Material (Of course, I have no idea if that actually holds scientifically. I'm basing this off the sentence alone, whether it's a true statement or not.)

Hope that helps.

JY explains "is" and other "miscellaneous" indicators in detail in the lesson on "Miscellaneous Logical Indicators."

Rev_Lefe

Thank you so much, justinslc! I fully understand how to diagram it now! I will also go through the lesson you mentioned. Also thanks to btownsquee