Re: pa remna, quantifiers

[jorge@phyast.pitt.edu]

And & lojbab:
> > This bothers me.  I haven't thought it out thoroughly, but perhaps it is
> > desireable to have "pa remna" = "pa lo remna" be a subselection from
> > remna which makes no claim about other members of remna.

{lo remna} is the one that makes no claims about other members of remna.
{pa remna} says the claim holds for one and only for one.

> If this meant (as I advocated)
>   "There is a set of cardinality 1, such that for every member of
>    the set there is one thing that is its head"
> then the problem would go away. (Or would it? I'm too tired to think
> about how this interacts with the goatleg rule.)

That would break the goatleg rule. To keep it intact, it has
to be "there is one and only one set (of humans) of cardinality 1,
such that...", or equivalently "there is one set (of humans) of
cardinality 1 and no set of cardinality greater than one, such that..."

> I had been saying to Jorge that many intuitive uses of {re prenu}
> in fact meant {ro lo re lo prenu}, so that it might be better to
> have {re [lo] prenu} interpreted as {ro lo re lo prenu} and {lo
> prenu} as {ro lo suo lo prenu}.

I don't think this is really what you proposed. For example:

        so'i prenu cu klama so'i stuzi
        Many people go to many places.

We want this to mean that for each of many people there are many
places that they go. But your recipe gives:

        ro lo so'i lo prenu cu klama ro lo so'i lo stuzi
        Each of many people go to each of many places.

Which is not the meaning we want. We want the second {so'i} to
have scope within the scope of the first {ro}. So your talk of
sets is more accurate.

> Jorge:
> >This would mean that general quantifiers (almost anything except {ro}
> >and {su'opa}), really hide one existential and one universal quantifier,
> >rather than some indefinite number of existential ones.
>
> I'm not sure even {suopa} should be exempt.

It wouldn't matter. The rules for {su'opa} and {ro} are the same with
both interpretations, the more complicated quantifiers are the ones
that can be different.

> >               ci remna cu se tuple re tuple
> >               3 people have 2 legs?
> > vs.
> >               re tuple cu tuple ci remna
> >               2 legs are legs for 3 people?
>
> First, doesn't the current goatleg ruling mean that these both mean
> "there are exactly three people and exactly two legs such that
> each leg is leg of each person"? So (a) both mean the same thing,
> and (b) both are false.

They both mean that under one interpretation. I don't want to call
it the traditional interpretation because I'm not sure anyone ever
gave this rule. There is nothing about this in the grammar papers.

> Under the revised interpretation of quantifiers, the first one means
> something perfectly normal - there exists a threesome of bipeds. The
> second one means for each of a pair of legs there are three people
> it's the leg of.

No, you are giving the revised meanings of {su'oci remna cu se tuple
re tuple} and of {su'ore tuple cu tuple ci remna}.

Unless we want to throw out the goatleg rule with our revision, which
I wouldn't really miss, but otherwise the claim is that only three
humans have (each of them) two and only two legs.

> > I am of the opinion that "quantifier broda" should be the same as
> > "quantifier lo broda" as it is now, but expanding as you suggest;
>
> Yes, Jorge persuaded me of this. I am gobsmacked that you, Jorge & I
> appear to agree on something.

Well, not expanding as you suggest, but with the meaning that you
suggest.

> > if you want a "da poi" you say "da poi".
>
> I think, & I think Jorge thinks, that {lo} would remain equivalent
> to {da poi}, and the meaning of {da poi} would change to {ro lo
> suo da poi}.

Yes, I think {lo broda} is definitely equivalent to {da poi broda}.
But I don't think its meaning changes under your interpretation.

        lo prenu cu klama lo stuzi
        At least one person goes to at least one place.

Means exactly the same whether you think of it as: "for each of
at least one person, there is at least one place such that
the person goes to the place" or as: "there is at least one
person and there is at least one place such that the person
goes to the place". In both cases, all that is asserted is that
at least one event of person going to place takes place.

Jorge