Subject: Re: [lojban] pa lo badna and the Goatleg Rule

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 15:52:53 +0000

>>> John Cowan <[email-masked]> 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.