RE: [jboske] talking about 2

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

John:
> And asks how you can talk about 2 rather than some 2 or every 2 in Lojban,
> given that li-sumti are implicitly quantified like other sumti. The answer
> is that when talking about the *number* 2, speaking of ro li re or su'o li re
> or pa li re or just li re changes no truth conditions, and so you may say
> any of them. It is a distinction without a difference 
> 
> At the meta level, you may need to erect distinctions between the *concepts*
> "2", "some 2", and "every 2", which should probably be done with a predicate
> with the place structure "x1 is the quantification of x2" 

My somewhat arcane complaint is that selbri phrases can directly
name things but sumti phrases can't. It's not that I can't find
a sentence that has the truth conditions that I want. It is that
if I identify a unique thing then I can name it with a brivla or 
cmene, but I can't directly refer to it.

--And.