Message-Id: <m0quJ7z-00005XC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 10 Oct 1994 13:40:21 +0200
Reply-To:     veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Subject:      'any' is a discursive ?!
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1936
Lines: 54

In the following I'll ignore the cases where 'any' is just 'all'
in disguise.

If we lived in an ideal universe and all the apples were ideal,
the following 2 statements would be equivalent

    I'll eat one apple
    I'll eat any one apple

However, we don't live in an ideal world, and some apples are rotten,
so, if someone states that he'll eat one apple, we'll understand
that he really means

    I'll eat one apple which satisfies certain conditions which
      I'm not telling you

    mi ba citka pa plise poi ke'a mansa mi zo'e

The word 'any' is an emphatic discursive which is used to indicate that
a statement without explicit restrictions is to be taken at face value,
i.e. as really having no implicit restrictions, perhaps contrary to
common sense.

This means that logically there is no need for 'any', the need is
dictated by praxis. So we need a discursive which means 'Yes, there
really are no restrictions' - but within the bounds of the explicit
statement it has no logical content, it simply denies the existence
of any elided implicit restrictions, affirms the nonexistence of
unexpressed restrictions.

If you consider the statement 'I'll eat any one apple', it doesn't
mean that I'll eat all apples, it just means that I don't apply
any restrictions, it is the statement 'I'll eat one apple, period'.

So, IMHO, 'any' is, in a way, an implicit part of all indefinite,
unrestricted descriptions. When you think you have a case where
this doesn't apply, ask yourself whether the 'any' ought, in fact,
read 'all'.

In Lojban we have 3 choices at this point

     1) we invent a new emphatic discursive {xe'e}
 or  2) we twist an exiting one to cover this role
 or  3) we negate the implicit {any} with a suitable restriction

(3) would be the most logical but not very Zipfian solution.

--

  co'o mi'e veion

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.i mi du la'o sy. Veijo Vilva sy.
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