Re: 'any' is a discursive ?!

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

coi Veion
> > Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 21:11:13 +0200
> > From: ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>
> > Subject:  Re: 'any' is a discursive ?!
> >
> > I can't understand how you get the difference between:
> >   There are two poems by Rilke that I am willing to read.
> >   I am willing to read any two poems by Rilke.
> > Is the former your "da poi" and the latter your "lo"?
>
>    Yes. In the first case there exist 2 poems by Rilke such
>    that I'm willing to read them, I'm implicitly excluding
>    the others. In the second I'm willing to read (any) 2 out
>    of all the poems by Rilke, no conditions, just give me 2.
>    In a normal conversation I think I might use {le bi'u re
>    pemci} as an alternative to {re da poi pemci} unless I'd
>    want to emphasize the exclusion. This way I'd have a
>    three step gradation at my disposal, from wide open to
>    strictly limited.

It would make a big difference if you used "le bihu re pemci".
"Zabna fa le bihu re pemci" would be false only if the two
pemci you had in mind (Rilke's first and Rilke's last, say)
weren't zabna, whereas "Zabna fa re da poi pemci" would be
false only if each member of every pair of poems by Rilke
weren't zabna. [Cf. Jorge's recent laudable polemic/exposition
re LE/LO, and Colin's of a year or two ago.]

And