Message-Id: <m0r5isj-00005XC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Thu, 10 Nov 1994 18:10:25 -0500
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      "ro" doesn't imply +specific
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 1369
Lines: 24

Jorge seems to think that anything quantified "ro" is specific, and that if
this rule doesn't hold, we can't get any +specific sumti at all.  I believe
he has a hold of the right stick at the wrong end: everything which is
+specific is quantified "ro", but not vice versa.  The claim "All rats
have kidneys" is not +specific with respect to "all rats", but -specific;
it translates as "ro ratcu" or "ro lo ratcu" or "ro da poi ratcu ku'o".
We do not take the speaker's intent as authority for the meaning of
"ro ratcu"; we go to the current universe of discourse and quantify over
the set of all rats.

Such universal quantifications over finite sets can be +definite or -definite:
the 50 (not 51, And) states of the US can be +definite, but hardly the
zillion real-world rats; nobody even knows how many there are, never mind
knowing each rat in particular (urgh).  For this and related reasons,
I remain skeptical about the utility of a +definite/-definite marker in
Lojban; if it existed, it would surely be a discursive.

Apropos counting {jecta}: most USAnians don't know how many provinces Canada
has, and I vaguely recall that England (not the U.K.) has 56 counties, but
I'm very prepared to be told I'm wrong.  So 51 states isn't that bad.

--
John Cowan              sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.