[lojban] The Any thread

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

It seems to me (tho I might be mistaken), that the disagreement
arises from different interpretations of "I need any doctor",
which, after all, is not a fully normal English sentence.

On xod & Craig's side, it is certainly true that "mi nitcu lo
mikce" is true if, for any doctor, I need them, and "mi viska
lo mlatu" is true if, for any cat, I see it.

But "I need any doctor" is being used by Robin & Jordan (and
Nick) to paraphrase a different meaning, one equivalent to

1.   I need there to be a lojban dictionary

whereas "mi nitcu lo lojbo valsi cukta" means

2.   There is a lojban dictionary that I need (there to be)

-- plainly these two sentences have different truth conditions.

So instead of arguing whether "lo" means "any" (my Expert Opinion
is that the answer is 25% Yes and 75% No!), I would ask Craig
& xod to try to translate "I need a lojban dictionary" into
Lojban, given that the normal reading of that sentence is
equivalent to 1 and not to 2.

--And.

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