Jorge Llambías, On 15/05/2011 22:00:
On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 5:33 PM, John E Clifford<kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:Since the distributive sense can always be expressed by the use of external quantifiers, there was no need for a special form for that. So the unquantified form could be used for the collective sense. However, it was thought (and practice shows this was a correct thought), that there was also needed a neutral expression, unmarked for either collective or distributive.Also, if "collective" means "all together" and "distributive" means "one by one" or "individually", there are a lot of other options in between: in pairs, in threes, some in pairs and some individually, and so on. "All together" and "one by one" are just the two extremes. If we only have forms for the extremes we are left with no form for all the intermediate cases, and if we do have a form that doesn't distinguish between all the intermediate possibilities there is no reason to exclude one of the extremes from that neutral form.
This is a good point, but if you agree that "the team" is subject to same range of interpretations on the collective--distributive scale as "the team members" is (e.g. "the team each have red hair"), then I think the appropriate conclusion is (a) that when an individual is construed as a collectivity it may receive wholly or partly distributive readings (quantifying over members or subsets of the collectivity), and (b) individual-construable-as-collectivity is the default (most underspecified) interpretation. To try to state essentially the same point in a completely different way: just as brodeing holds of the referentage of "lo broda" to any degree on the coll--dist scale, so does "brodaing". On the plural reference model, "lo broda" has many referents, and it needn't be the case that each is brode; my point it that it also needn't be the case that each is broda. I'm not sure if you already agree with this point. --And. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.