Subject: RE: except the cat

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 23:16:06 EDT

xorxes:
<<The "all but the cat" that I'm trying to translate is exactly
like "even the cat", except that the cat instead of being
included is excluded. The cat is the unlikeliest (or sufficiently
unlikely) limit in both cases. What constitutes "all" is defined
in a way by this limit.>>

I seem to have missed the context here, then. You are using "all
but the cat" as a vesion of "everything but the kitchen sink," not
literally "all (the unspecified group) except the cat." So, in fact {ro
da} does not play a role here either and we are outside logic again
and into emotions and sufficiencies. Following the extension of 
{ji'a} on the "even" thread, this sounds like whatever the word for
"finally" is, followed by the denial of "the cat", thereby setting the
limit sought.

<<>X Qx ek L Y => X Qx Y ijek X x=L Y.

But if Q = ro and ek = onai that gives a contradiction,
always false, and thus can't be what we're after>>

No, but the formula should be ijek x=L without the X and Y.
Then it is just "Everything x, XxY XOR x=L" so that if x=L then not XxY, and 
if 
x=/=L , then XxY, as required. Even the standard reading doesn't give a 
contradiction: X all x Y XOR XLY is true if XLY is and X all x Y is not. 
It just doesn't fit the case where XLY is false but X all x Y is true -- 
indeed that case cannot arise (a Gricean reason for understanding it in a 
special way).