Re: Thoughts on "any"

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

Subject:      Thoughts on "any"

Chris Bogart <cbogart@quetzal.com>:
>There's something special about the arguments of djica, nitcu, claxu,
>sisku, and certain commands (ko cpacu lo tanxe), that is akin to a
>negative.  There seems to be a negation associated with most of these
>concepts (mi nitcu lo tanxe at least suggests that mi na ponse lo tanxe;
>ko cpacu lo tanxe is the same way)

The commonalty of all of these are that they are "intensional" - the
thing wanted/needed/lacked/sought/acquired exists in the world of
intension - i.e. the mind - which need not be the same as the real
world.  There are several other words that are, or could be intensional.

The implicit negation you are seeing is the acknowledgement built into
many of these words of the possible non-reality of the object.

It is possible that any time that you have an intensional, or an
irrealis condition, that there is an implicit need to introduce a more
limited scope for any quantifiers within that intensional sumti.  pc has
said in private email (if I understand him) that many non-abstract
values in such places are inherently sumti-raising because of the need
for a different level of 'universe' with its own quantification scope.
(I'll let him explain this if it isn't obvious, since I am anything but
qualified to talk clearly on the subject.

I brought in irrealis into the last paragraph, because it hasn't thus
far been mentioned in this discussion.  Irrealis mode seems to me to be
what we are talking about whenever we aren't sure that something exists,
asnd there may be some solution to the problems of quantification in
'mental world' sumti by using the marker for irrealis mode (Colin Fine
has argued this as the general meaning of "da'i" in UI).

I don't pretend that this answers all issues that have been raised in
this discussion (which has gone over my head), but maybe it will help on
some of them.  Nora is reading the discussions and may eventually
comment, but she isn't yet managing to keep up with the flow of
messages, much less getting caught up to the point where she feels ready
to contribute.  I believe that pc is roughly in the same position, and
perhaps John Cowan as well.  The intensity of the discussion is good,
and perhaps a new record for this mailing list especially in that it is
involving people from over a half-dozen countries, and is at the deepest
logical levels of the language.  So in no way to I want to urge a halt
to the discussion, while warning that pronouncements from "on-high" will
not be coming in the short term, especially while the discussion continues
at this level.

My compliments to all of you for your continued contributions.

lojbab