From jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:45:13 2010 Date: Tue, 30 May 1995 14:40:39 EDT From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Subject: Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response To: Bob LeChevalier X-From-Space-Date: X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Message-ID: la djan cusku di'e > An inner quantifier with a lo-series descriptor (lo, loi, lo'i, lo'e) > is an incidental comment on the size of the (veridical) set. So saying > "lo'i su'o tanxe" is the same as "lo'i ro tanxe", given that at least > one box exists. > > It's only in the le-series (and the la-series, which follows the same > semantic rules) that inner quantifiers do in-mind subselection. I think even for the le-series the inner quantifier is always equivalent to {ro}. {re le mu tanxe} is "two of the five boxes I have in mind". Five is all of them, so "five" doesn't make any subselection. (Unless you consider it a subselection from all boxes, but I don't think that's how it works, even ignoring the veridicality issue.) The default {su'o} is necessary only because the outside default is {ro}. If the inside was left as {ro} as well, then you could use {le broda} to mean "nothing", (each of the broda from the zero I have in mind), which would be very bad and confusing. But even that default inner {su'o} is equivalent to {ro}. The outside quantifier selects from all of those that I have in mind, which are at least one. Jorge