how to diagram "whatever"

Rev_Lefe

Hi,
I've seen "whatever" in many questions. For example:

i) "The meaning of a poem is whatever the author intends to communicate to the reader by means of the poem."
(PT57.S2.Q24)

ii) "The meaning of a poem is whatever meaning a reader assigns to it"
(PT55.S3.Q24)

My intuition is to make both sentence biconditional, without any strong logic reason.

I checked some grammar books, one mentions it's a relative and conditional determiner. It seems to also suggest that both of the sentences are bi-condiitonal.

So I want to know how you think about this. Any insights and comments would be really appreciated.
Thanks.

Jordan Johnson

Those examples both seem like definitions, so I wouldn't use conditional notation on either of them (they're both saying 'A is B'... I don't see the term 'whatever' as a logical indicator).

I suppose a bi-conditional would make the most sense since a term and its definition should be interchangeable, but I've never considered notating them in that way.

LivinLaVidaLSAT

Whenever I'm not sure about the logic or how to interpret it, I ask myself, "What traditional logic indicator words could I use instead of 'whatever'?" Consider synonyms (keep the part of speech in mind). Then see if I can translate it to an if/then statement.

For the biconditional, simplify it, and consider each conditional statement separately. I remind myself that the biconditional means A triggers B and B triggers A. Ask yourself if each statement is true.

A ---> B
A <--- B

Therefore, A <---> B.

I'm curious, how you would diagram the 2 sentences as written? What's the biconditional and how does "whatever" come into play?

Rev_Lefe

Thank you, Jordan Johnson and LivinLaVidaLSAT.
"Bi-conditional" mean a condition is both sufficient and necessary for another condition, which is precisely what your diagram "A <---> B" presents.
I am really not sure how whatever plays in me putting these two sentence into biconditional; perhaps I am tempted to do so due to the nature of relative and conditional determiner.