Re: possible readings of "John seeks a bike or a fish"

[phri!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!lee]

From article <265D4D6F.5886@marob.masa.com>, by cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan):
>...
>A discussion on the articles "le" and "lo":  In Lojban, a distinction is made
>between veridical and non-veridical description.  A veridical description
>claims that the thing described actually exists and meets the description:
>...

In an example with an indefinite and a single scope-taking element,
e.g. "John tries", a two way distinction for nominals suffices, since the
only possibilities are that the indefinite is in or out of one scope.
But what if there are two or more scope-taking items?  Then the
indefinite may be in or out of several scopes.  What do you do then?
(cf. `Mary doesn't want John to seek a bike.')  A two-way, or n-way,
morphological classification of nominals can not in principle express
all the logical distinctions, because they are unbounded in number.

				Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu