[lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- Jorge Llamb�as <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/19/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > --- Jorge Llamb�as <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > If the boys carrying chairs in pairs makes "the boys carry chairs" c-true,
> > > then surely the boys carrying chairs individually must make it c-true as well.
> >
> > I agree, in this case.  But it could be c-true without their carrying them
> > individually (as in your example above), so it could be c-true and not d-true.
> 
> That has never been in dispute.


> > On the other hand,"the students wore
> > hats" is d-true but not c-true (on a normal reading)
> 
> What is the difference between wearing a hat and carrying a chair that
> makes "the students carry chairs" c-true but "the students wear hats"
> not c-true, when in both cases each student does?
> 
At least two things: 1) hats, by their nature, can only be worn by one person at a time, so the
collective does not make sense 2) "hats" is indefinite: if it were "the students wore THE hats" a
collective would be possible because we now have a specific group to cover, that is we can get a
group-group relationship which is not available with the indefinite (to be sure three is the group
of worn hats, but that is not mentioned, it merely is.  Note that the collective sense for wearing
hats can only arise from the distributive one, whereas the case for carrying chairs might come
from any arrangement of the members of the group and the chairs.


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