Natural language translation

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Vocabulary:

  • $R(x)$ - "x is a river"
  • $L(x)$ - "x is a lake"
  • $S(x)$ - "x is a sea"
  • $F(x, y)$ - "x flows into y"

The domain consists only of waterbodies (rivers, lakes and seas).

"Some lakes flow into other waterbodies, and some do not."

$ \exists x \exists y (x \ne y \wedge L(x) \wedge L(y) \wedge \exists z F(x, z) \wedge \neg \exists z F(y, z))$

Have I captured this correctly?

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Yes... though you don’t have to point out that $x \neq y$ ... and in fact I would leave it out.

Given that $\exists z \ F(x,z)$ and $\neg \exists z \ F(y,z)$, it logically follows that $x \neq y$. Put differently, you can remove the $x \neq y$ and it will still be logically equivalent.

And, since the English sentence does not explicitly state that we are dealing with two different lakes, I think it is better to just leave it out.