Re: Goats' legs and counting

[lock60!snark!cowan@GVLS1.VFL.PARAMAX.COM]

la'o bylg. Ivan bylg. cusku di'e

> If you say that the goat has two legs, what you are saying is that
>
> >          lo'e kanba cu se tuple re da poi tuple ->
> >          re da poi tuple zo'u lo'e kanba cu se tuple da
>
> -- `there are two things, restricted to being legs, such that the
> typical goat is belegged by them'.

Because then there is no way of making claims about exact numeration.
We could move to a situation wherein exactness is marked by a cmavo, and
the lack of a cmavo means "at least", but to what benefit?  The above
construction, "re da", means "There exist exactly two things", just as
"[su'o] da" means "There exists at least one thing", the classical existential
quantifier.  We can rewrite the former in terms of the latter as:

        da de naku di zo'u
                da nadu de .ije de nadu di .ije da nadu di .ije
                da .e de .e di cu tuple lo'e remna

more or less:

        There exists an X and a Y , but no Z such that
                X, Y, and Z are all different and
                X, Y, and Z are legs of the typical human.

> In any case, if I have in mind two
> legs by which the goat is belegged, it shouldn't matter whether it is
> belegged by something else as well (by two more legs, as it were).

It matters because quantification is veridical; it is not associated with
in-mind-ness.  If you assert that there exist exactly two things which beleg
the typical goat, you are precluded from asserting that there are more things
as well.

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.