Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 03:42:10 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801280842.DAA15995@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: fuzzy bears X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: 26531a1f407071de65a6c298cc27cbf5 X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Jan 28 09:41:27 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - Steve to me: > >We haven't yet concluded the lapsed thread on countability. But > >at any rate, almost certainly means 4/7 of a > >single bear. > > I don't think so. This is an indefinite description, no? Shouldn't it turn > into: ? Isn't this currently nonsensical? If so, > good, it is a niche of the language awaiting exploitation. This has probably been answered already, but and are officially defined as equivalent in meaning. So no, it's not nonsensical. The unexplored niche that you might exploit is using numbers like "most" as the inner quantifier. You'd have to find a way of defining other numbers besides it, though. Most compound numbers (i.e. consisting of a sequence of PA) make no sense if they contain "most". So that gives you a big space of unexplored nonsense to colonize. All the same, I think a solution that generalized to all selbri is better than one that works only in the innermost quantifier slot in sumti. --And