From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Mon Nov 05 07:41:24 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 5 Nov 2001 15:41:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 59575 invoked from network); 5 Nov 2001 15:41:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m6.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 5 Nov 2001 15:41:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 5 Nov 2001 15:41:22 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Mon, 5 Nov 2001 15:17:51 +0000 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:53:03 +0000 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:52:53 +0000 To: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] pa lo badna and the Goatleg Rule Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin >>> John Cowan 11/05/01 04:02am >>> #Rob Speer scripsit: #> If you say {mi viska pa lo badna}, are you saying that that is the #> only banana you see? The only banana you will ever see? How would you #> fix this while still only focusing on one banana? # #Well, of course the tense is vague, being unspecified. But at some #time or other, during some time interval or other, you saw one banana #exactly. # #After all, this isn't so alien to some kinds of English either. If #you were asked to testify in court how many robbers you saw, and #you saw four, you wouldn't get far replying "Two" on the ground #that if you saw four, you necessarily saw two. If numbers aren't treated as quantifiers then the two readings ("at least" and "exactly") can be separated logically: 1. The cardinality of the set containing every robber I saw on Tuesday is 4. [true] 2. There is a set of cardinality 2 such that each of its members is a robber I saw on Tuesday. [true] But it's still simpler to just remember Goatleg and use "su'o" when you mean (2). --And.