Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0rFAts-00007GC; Wed, 7 Dec 94 03:10 EET Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2860; Wed, 07 Dec 94 03:10:47 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 2858; Wed, 7 Dec 1994 03:10:47 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1248; Wed, 7 Dec 1994 02:07:30 +0100 Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 20:13:48 EST Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: Jorge Llambias Subject: Re: Subject: Re: TEXT: pemci X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1719 Lines: 34 And: > Since the collective/distributive distinction only makes sense for > categories with >1 member, and since we seem to feel that lVi is > more 'marked' than lV, it is true that lVi pragmatically implies > plurality. But this is not a grammatical number distinction, of > course, and it doesn't apply to distributives: lV does not pragmatically > imply singularity But it does. A distributed plurality is not a real plurality. There isn't a significant difference in claiming that the man carries a piano, or each of the two men carries a piano, or each of the three men carries a piano. The event is always the same, repeated one, two or three times. There isn't a significant boundary separating the single event from the more than one event. I don't think that is the important distinction that you feel is necessary to make easily. The important distinction is when the entity carrying the piano is an individual or a group. That is the distinction that has to be easily made, and it is easily made. I think that most uses of plural in English correspond to {lei} in Lojban (or loi when appropriate). Sometimes English does use the plural marking for the distributive sense, but I think that is the minority of cases. > [interestingly, I think we tend to assume in the > absence of contextual clues to the contrary that lV is referring > to a single entity (at least I do). Yes, and I think it is natural to do so, because otherwise we'd be assuming that the claim is about more than one event, which is not warranted unless context makes it plain that it is. The simplest assumption is that one claim corresponds to one event, even if the grammar allows that it be referring to more than one event. Jorge