Re: A modest proposal #2: verdicality

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

> Let me just make one point that may be new, without trying to start a
> new discussion: gender and (physical) sex are hardly as dualistic as
> most people think they are (and as our culture constantly pushes on
> us).

I know, I sure do.

> Consider transvestites, transsexuals, and hermaphrodites.
> Because of those last, in particular, one might reasonably say {da cu
> nanmu je ninmu je nimnau}.

Sure, but we are talking about one particular woman.  Assume that she is
a woman and not a man, and yet due to our initial misaprehension we
insist to keep calling her {le nanmu}.  I don't know why I'm defending
this example anyway since I really agree with you in essence.

> But I'm sure one could come up with a better example, and...
>
>  > However, if you want to think that {le} is always veridical, I'm not
>  > going to disagree with you, since that is the case except in a set
>  > of measure zero anyway.  :)
>
> I think I'll just do that.  (A fellow mathematician at heart, I see.)

I guess you must have heard the joke:  biologists believe they're
chemists, chemists believe they're physicists, physicists believe they
are God, and God believes he's a mathematician.

> Well, yes, but because of the implicit existential quantification of
> {da}, a {noi} clause ends up providing information crucial to
> restricting the quantification and understanding the sentence; e.g.,
> {da noi nanmu cu te cimei} == "There are at least three men."

Assuming that the {cimei} is composed of men. da, being a nanmu, could
be a member of the set {pa nanmu, pa tirxu, pa cribe}

> (Hmm.  I'm not sure how much sense that makes.  Does
>       le xunre cukta .e le blabi cukta .e le blanu cukta cu te cimei
> make sense?)

Yes. But nothing says that they are members of the same {cimei}, I think.

Jorge