Subject: [lojban] Re: Any (was: Nick will be with you shortly)

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:17:24 -0500 (EST)

Martin Bays scripsit:

> Oh dear. If I've understood your meaning of "any" correctly - you need a
> doctor, and what's more you need a doctor precisely because of its
> doctorishness, and don't care about specific identity or other properties
> - then this is precisely the kind of circumstance in which I'd use lo'e.
> I need "the typical" doctor - I need "the result of squinting over the set
> of all things which doctor".
> 
> I'm guessing that's wrong. Anyone feel like explaining why?

Because "lo'e mikce" is an abstraction bearing only the typical features of
doctors. As Woldy says, the typical lion is neither male nor female, though
all actual lions are one or the other. If you want lo'e mikce, you will not
get much doctoring from it.

-- 
John Cowan [email-masked] http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Most languages are dramatically underdescribed, and at least one is 
dramatically overdescribed. Still other languages are simultaneously 
overdescribed and underdescribed. Welsh pertains to the third category.
--Alan King