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.
No, quantifiers are only there if the are actually there. We may be able to infer some quantified _expression_ from an _expression_ that does not have a quantifier, but that does not mean that that _expression_ contains an implicit one. Perhaps you're saying that
lo nanmu cu bevri le pipno means that at least one man carries the piano
It doesn't mean
that, but it does entail it (with suitable precautions to deal with the distributive/collective issue)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?
Why is there a subtext about what the speaker knows or doesn't in either case? Assuming the number doesn't matter (Rule of Relevance), there is no reason to fill out either. Note further that su'o nanmu requires the carrying to be distributive, while lo nanmu does not (and, I would say, precludes it). Under xorxes version, the plainest case would be the first one here, which
leaves both number and distribution unspecified -- with no implication about whether or not the speaker or anybody else knows how many are involved or how the work was divvied out. And with no quantifiers.
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/>