Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 6:31 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:
> Martin Bays, On 30/10/2011 21:25:
>> * Sunday, 2011-10-30 at 17:17 -0300 - Jorge
>> Llambías<jjllambias@gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> but surely "these lions are dangerous, don't go near them" covers both
>>> "lions of this kind are dangerous, don't go near them" and "these
>>> particular individual lions are dangerous, don't go near them".
>>
>> That's technically true, and I had forgotten about this feature (bug?)
>> of english... perhaps I have been giving english more disambiguating
>> credit than it's worth...
>
> The English can also mean "lions of these kinds" too, of course. (I mention
> that just to advance the extinction of Martin's faith in English being the
> language he had been wishing it to be.)

There's also the sense "these animals called lions are dangerous".

But the fact that we don't have to disambiguate when it is not
necessary doesn't mean we can't when we need to, so I don't think this
reflects poorly on English (or Lojban).

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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