Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response

[jorge@phyast.pitt.edu]

la dilyn cusku di'e

> How about just {lo cukta cu se skari da}?  The order is important
> here: "For some books: for some da (maybe depending on the book): the
> book has color da".

That's the question, is the order important?

Actually, in this example it doesn't matter anyway. All it says
is that at least one book has at least one color, and it would be
the same in the reverse order. But for other quantifiers, the
question is relevant. For example, what does {so'u cukta cu se
skari pada} mean? Does it mean that a few books have a single
color (maybe a different one depending on the book), or does
it mean "there are a few books and there is a single x, such
that those books have color x".

I think order should be important, but I don't think this is
discussed anywhere in the grammar papers.

The other order {pada cu skari so'u cukta} would mean "there is
only one x such that a few books are color x".

> It's reasonable to say that elided places come at
> the end of the prenex, in which case there's no problem with any of
> these.

The problem is not so much where come the elided places,
but whether succesive general quantifiers have equal scope or not.

(The problem with choosing the more "naturalistic" approach,
where order matters, is that then the other meaning is impossible
to achieve. The embedded scopes can always be forced with
{lu'a} and company.)

Jorge