"any"

[Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>]

PC said:

        Veion suggests that 'any', when not all in disguise, is a
discursive that means "no hidden conditions apply".  His example, "I will
eat any apple," however, seems to fail on both counts.
        First, the sentence as he uses it is pretty clearly not a
prediction, but an offer.  As such, it sets up an intentional (so also
intensional and thus opaque) context.  "Any' then functions as usual as a
context-leaping universal, the whole being approximately, "for all x, if
x is an apple, then I am willing that I eat x" -- "all" in disguise
again, but outside the opaque context and binding into it, so covering
real apples only (with no guarantee that here are any, as is usual with
'any').
        Using the often illuminating dialog exposition of quantifiers,
this offer would amount to the speaker saying "You get to pick the apple
but I am willing to eat whatever you pick."  But I, the hearer am pretty
clearly not unrestricted in my choice of apples.  In the first place, I
only get one pick (well, certainly the speaker can withdraw his offer
after some number, he is not committed to eating -- or even to being
willing to eat -- every apple there is).  This is a feature of the
intentional part, though, not of the 'any.'  But, further, my choice is
restricted in very inexplicit ways: I surely cannot expect him to take
the apple the queen has prepared for Snow white nor the one Eve gave
Adam nor probably even those soft brown ones in the bottom of the
barrel.  "Any' is, after all, just the preferred bearer of such
conditions as "within reason"  (the usual formulation of the hidden
clause). To insist that the speaker has agreed to eat a manifestly yucky
apple is on a par to denying that all wild ducks in North America fly
South for the winter because pet ducks, crippled ducks and ducks in city
parks do not.  The objections may be technically correct but
conversationally irrelevant and inappropriate -- moderately good logic
but abominable language.
        Veion's idea is a good one, IF he can find a case.  But IMHO
'any' ain't gonna provide any.
pc>|83


GK continues:
        This makes it clear just how pleiomorphic  and ambiguous this
        little word of English can be.  I think if we ever get it
        working properly in lojban it will have to take many different
        forms. Just as the connective "and" did when lojbanized. I am
        still opposed to trying to capture all the English meaning and
        behavior of "any" in one word.

        Looking at the above analysis it appears that the meaning can be
        broken down into three elements.
                1. exactly one apple is under discussion.
                2. It is a typical apple. No outliers are under
                consideration.
                3. It is a randomly selected apple.
                4. (2) and (3) are connected by the logical &.

                So we have one typical and random apple:
                In lojban this goes:
                pa lomci je cunso plise       (or possibly):
                lo paboi lomci plise ije cunso plise?

        Maybe we need a word for precisely this.  It could be a start on "any"
        Would it parse?  Are quantifiers proliferating to excess?

XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E, XE'E ...........I heard that laugh, jorge.

djer