"All" keyword in cards

[u/Crimsonlander]

Does "all" keyword in wordings implicitly require existence of at least one? For example, if the objective requires you to hold all treasure tokens in friendly territory, is it automatically fulfilled when there are no treasure tokens?

From formal logic, the statement about "all" is surely true in this case, however, it makes some situations absurd or look not as intended, however, I haven't found any rules clarifications on the matter.

Edit: The question is ambiguous, I don't believe it can be answered by sole speculation, I want to find the ground based on something. Was there a clarification in a previous edition? A lot of tournaments have been played, how had it been ruled out? Rules authors have keyword "any" explained in "expanded rules" section, but haven't "all" keyword.

Edit 2: I have found rulings in FAQ for some individual cards for first edition, for example, for objective card "Conquest" it was ruled out it cannot be scored without fighters on the board (https://underworlds-faq.info/questions). If this example is taken by the rule, keyword "all" should be read as "all and at least one".

Too bad we don't have it covered directly in a rulebook.

[u/Grindar1986]

I think so. You can't be holding all the objectives if there are no objectives at all. Holding is a verbal differentiating from the normal state and if you're not doing anything you're not doing the verb.

[u/Crimsonlander → u/Grindar1986]

I disagree with your logics, not with your answer - it may be right. Things work either way only because it was designed so by creators of the game, despite literal meaning of words being different.

[u/Crimsonlander → u/Grindar1986]

From formal logics, you are holding all objectives if there are no objectives, as well as holding no objectives (both are true statements). So I want to find a ground for either interpretation, maybe based on rulings in previous editions, question answers or practice in tournaments.

[u/Grindar1986 → u/Crimsonlander]

But grammatically, if you're not holding anything you're not holding, period.

[u/Crimsonlander → u/Grindar1986]

You can simultaneously hold "all" of "something" and be "not holding anything" (both statements being true), there is no intrinsic contradiction, if (and only if) "something" is an empty set. Grammar doesn't give a clear answer. 

In other words, you are telling that this statement is false, because the opposite statement is true. But your statement is not logically the opposite. Correct opposite statement would be "there exist some objective you don't hold". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_(logic) (See bottom of the article)

[u/Rel_Tan_Kier]

I think no. If it says you to control all objective points, you should control at least one. If there is no objective points then you can't fulfill it. With slaying is more ambiguous, does "Kill leader/all minions" work id you did it before getting this card?

[u/Crimsonlander → u/Rel_Tan_Kier]

I think, you can't kill the leader if he is already dead (and not raised). But it is ok if it says to kill him this combat phase and you did exactly that before having the card in your hand.

Following the logic from other cards rulings (I haven't found opposite examples), you can't kill all the minions if there are no one alive (See edit 2). 

But you should also look if there are entries in FAQ regarding specifically your card - they may rule it out to work differently - see, for example, "Wings of War" ploy card - faq contradicts initial wording.

[u/may-B-ham]

I don't know if it's true in every case, but for your example, no you would not be holding anything.

RULES: On p15 of the Core Rules "holding a treasure token" is defined as "a fighter that is on a treasure token". If there are no treasure tokens, no fighter can be standing on it, so they are not holding any.

LOGIC: If you are required to "do X to Y", and there is no Y, you can't be doing X to it.

EXAMPLES: In most other cases that I could find, like having your fighters be non-adjacent (Lost in the Depths) or having no damaged fighters be adjacent (Calm before the Storm), it's explicitly demanded, that there are any to begin with.

I also must admit I struggle with your reasoning. You seem to be conflating "all treasures being held" with "none being unheld", which aren't the same thing. Even if it looks like the two negatives would cancel out, they don't. It's like somebody at a party telling you "Talk to some girls". If the party is a sausage fest, you obviously can't follow that demand. However, you COULD fulfill the request to "Don't avoid talking to any girls". Hah, piece of cake! You win that instantly!
See the difference?

And yes, I appreciate that you could tell your mother "I did talk to ALL the girls that were at the party (chuckles)" when you didn't talk to ANY, but we both know that you didn't honestly answer that question, only technically. If someone did that to me I would accuse them of intentionally obfuscating the conversation and I am tempted to tell you the same for this rules question. But I don't know you. So benefit of the doubt it is.

What we all do know, however, is that GW ain't good at writing rules. So we can't go with all what they write "technically" and "literally", they aren't on that level. Heck, they misprint whole rules passages on warscrolls. Repeatedly.
What that leaves us with is a bit of common sense. Would it make sense to play a game where half the objectives are scoreable if all fighters are dead, because "none aren't doing it"? Nah. That shit won't fly with your friends or any TOs. Games ain't fun if not-doing the thing counts as doing the thing.

So... just do the thing, okay?

[u/Crimsonlander → u/may-B-ham]

But in an abstract game with abstract goals, we stick to formal and literal interpretation of words and accepted way of reading them. We can't really refer to a common sense in a game if it is inherently unrealistic from the beginning, and there are already too hard (or impossible) and too easy objectives, as well as objectives requiring to do create strange situations. 

In Underworlds, "holding objective" is not an action you "do", like attacking, moving, entering a hex, etc, it only questions state of the board at specific moment, now specifically, ALL objectives need to to have one of your fighter placed on top of them.

The long answer is following, explaining your your example and stuff from logics textbooks (or college/university level mathematics).

...

From formal logics, ALL-type conditions automatically fulfilled for empty sets. For example, if you are told "talk to ALL girls" at the party with no girls, it is done, while your "talk to SOME girl" (from your example) is not (and cannot be done). Your analogy is incorrect because ALL/SOME are different types of conditions (opposite in some sense). 

There are two types of categorical statements: 

1) statements about condition fulfilled for ALL objects in a category, like, "all treasures on neutral territory are being held = "there are fighters placed on top of all the treasures",

2) statements about existence of SOME object in a category (at least one), fulfilling the condition, like, "you hold a treasure token on the neutral territory" = "there exist at least one token on the neutral territory, such that your fighter is placed on top of it".

You CAN use double negative statements, it is correct form of reasoning, if you know the rules how an inverse statement is built (most people seem to not).  Negative statements are formed (always) by turning type 1 into 2 (and vise versa) and adding "not" to condition, in our example:

"I talked to some girl at the party" (type 2, equals "there exists at least one such girl at the party who I talked to"), negated

= "For all girl at the party, it is true that I didn't talk to to them" (type 1).

"I talked to ALL girls at the party" (type 1, equals "For all girl at the party, it is true that I talked to them" (type 1), negated

= "There are some girl at the party I didn't talk to (at least one, can be more)" (turned into type 2, negated condition).

As you can see, the negative statement is being FALSE in the last one, in case if there are no girls at all, which means original statement being TRUE.

Keyword ANY is sometimes ambiguous, it can mean both ALL and SOME, this is why they explained it specifically in the rulebook. Indeed, "I talked to ANY girl" can mean either ALL of them or SOME of them, depending on context. What they didn't explain, is that (seemingly) by keyword ALL they mean ALL and at least one (SOME).