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On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Jordan DeLong wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 05:27:17PM -0500, Invent Yourself wrote:
> > 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
>
> That is the proper interpretation.
>
> Remember lo xirma == da poi xirma.
>
> > 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.)
>
> Right, but let's say you've seen a bunch of horses. Some white,
> some black, some purple with pink polka dots. Then someone claims
> there's no such thing as white horses
> no xirma cu blabi
> and you feel compelled to defend that there are some
> .i je'u lo xirma cu blabi
> "le" would be incorrect---the listener would respond with "le ki'a
> xirma" (what horse?).
What horse? Why, the white horse that the speaker saw, has in mind, and is
directly referring to. "le xirma cu blabi": the horses I have in mind are
white. How one could refute "no xirma cu blabi" without having at least
one white horse in mind is difficult to imagine.
But if you say "lo xirma cu blabi" because that's the best claim you can
make, then you don't know which ones are white, and any of them could be.
> (You could also say "loi xirma cu blabi" for
> this btw, but that's neither here nor there).
>
> It definitely doesn't do "any".
I cannot see any difference in meaning yet between "I need a doctor", "I
need any doctor" and "mi nitcu 1 mikce". The applicable set of doctors and
lo mikce is the same.
--
// if (!terrorist)
// ignore ();
// else
collect_data ();