[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [jboske] Needed boxes (was: lo'ie != lo'ei)



On Sun, 29 Dec 2002, John Cowan wrote:

> Invent Yourself scripsit:
>
> > I say by not specifying what sort of doctor he needs, or even indicating
> > that there are unspoken in-mind restriction conditions, he is asking for
> > any doctor.
>
> You might as well say that "lo xirma cu blabi" means "Any horse is white".
> It doesn't and that's that.


One might interpret this as "There is at least 1 horse that's white", the
sort of statement one might make after observing a white horse. But after
observing one, the speaker has that white horse in mind, and should use
"le", not "lo". So I'm still waiting for a refutation of my idea that
{-specific} ranges over the whole set, can refer to any member of the set,
and in this case translates close to this English sense of "any". (There
could be some other sense of "any" that's causing grief.)



-- 
// if (!terrorist)
// ignore ();
// else
collect_data ();