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Lojbab:
> At 12:24 PM 1/6/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote:
> >Lojbab:
> > > At 10:19 PM 1/5/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > > >The following facts are incompatible:
> > > >{lo blanu} means "da poi is-a-countable-blue-thing"
> > > >{ti blanu} means "this is blue", not "this is-a-countable-blue-thing"
> > >
> > > Beating Nora to the punch, we can argue about gadri all you want, but when
> > > you turn to predicates themselves, you need to also be considering the
> > > verbal reading. Thus
> > > {lo blanu} means "da such that [it/they] blue[s]" (meaning that
> > > countability disappears as an issue)
> > > {ti blanu} means "this blues", not "this is-a-countable-blue-thing"
> >
> >You are right about {ti blanu}, but officially {lo blanu} means
> >"da such that it is a countable blue thing", not "da such that it
> >blues". Countability does not disappear as an issue, because countability
> >is part of the official meaning of {lo}
>
> Can you give a specific reference (one that does not ascribe countability
> as an implication of the default quantifiers)
No. But as John explained some weeks ago, the gismu were defined to
be neutral wrt countability, with uncountable interpretation encoded
by the application of loi and countable interpretation encoded by the
application of lo. The issue of default quantifiers shouldn't matter,
because any quantifier on lo will involve counting.
It now occurs to me, though, that perhaps lo is not supposed to force
a countable interpretation, in which case lo broda = da poi broda can
stand. That is, perhaps the idea is that lo broda by virtue of its
quantifiers involves counting, but does not require that each variable
bound by the quantifier be *a single* broda. Perhaps Lojban does not
have a way of forcing a countable interpretation.
All this uncertainty is very frustrating.
--And.