What's the difference between non-specifying information specifically and non-specifically? Either you give the information or you don't. The only difference I can imagine is that
lo nanmu cu bevri le pipno allows for the information to be specified by context. That is, the quantifier is implicit and determined by context, but in every specific context it
is there. Perhaps you're saying that
lo nanmu cu bevri le pipno means that at least one man carries the piano with the subtext that the speaker might know the actual number of men involved, whereas
su'o nanmu cu bevri le pipno means the speaker doesn't know the number of men? I don't think so: the later is just a statement of fact without additional implications. If it's not, what
would be a plain statement of fact?
On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 11:50 PM, Kevin Reid
<kpreid@mac.com> wrote:
On Sep 9, 2009, at 16:28, Squark Rabinovich wrote:
Then lo nanmu cu bevri le pipno means "at least one man carries the piano(s)". This means precisely that a situation of men that carry the piano(s) exists, but we don't know how many men are there.
- The speaker may know how many men, but not say so.
- The *listener* will not know how many.
This phrase is not specifically indeterminate in number in the way the English "at least one ..." is; it just doesn't specify any number other than at least one.
Similarly, in English "men carried the piano" implies there were su'o re men carrying the piano, but it is not specifically not-specifying the number, just leaving out the information.
--
Kevin Reid <http://switchb.org/kpreid/>