Re: Quantifiers (was Re: A modest proposal #2: verdicality)

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

la dilyn cusku di'e
> My cmavo list (dated 6/94, the one at the ftp site) says
>
>  mei       MOI      cardinal selbri
>    convert number to cardinality selbri;
>    x1 is the mass formed from set x2 whose n member(s) are x3

I would have thought that the place for the members would be more useful
than the one for the set, so I don't know why they were changed.  (I had
been looking at the 6/93 list.)

> I don't understand the description of the x3 place, so I've just been
> assuming that it should read "with element x3".

I assume it means that too, but you have to mention n somewhere in the
definition.

> Hold on, let's back up.  I was intending to give alternatives for
> "There are _exactly_ three men in the room", but I think most of my
> alternatives fell short, saying, at most, "there are _at least_ three
> men in the room".  Which of the following work?  What the best way to
> say this?
>
>         lo ci nanmu pe ne'i le kumfa cu ce'o
          At least one of the three men in the room does it.
          [ce'o->co'e]

>         .i le ni lo nanmu cu nenri le kumfa cu du ci
          The amount of at least one man being inside the room is
          equal to three. [ci->li ci]

>         .i piro loi nanmu pe ne'i le kumfa cu cimei
          All the men in the room (together) form a threesome.

>
> (#2 is ambiguous, perhaps.)

Very.  I don't know what the amount of insideness could be.

But to say "There are exactly three men in the room", I would say:

        ci nanmu cu nenri le kumfa

({ci nanmu} is the same as {ci lo nanmu}, and means "exactly three of
all the men there are".)

>  > > (There's got to be a technical reason the {zi'e} is necessary, yes?  I
>  > > know {le se cusku pe mi pe do} is grammatical with a different
>  > > meaning, but {le se cusku pe mi ge'u pe do} is not grammatical.)
>  >
>  > It is grammatical, but {zi'e} at least saves you from having to use
>  > {ge'u}. It is much easier to mentally parse the sentence with {zi'e}
>  > than with {ge'u}.
>
> Oh!  You're right, it is.  But if you look at the parser output
>         ({<le [(se cusku) (pe mi ge'u)] KU> <pe do GE'U>} VAU)
> you'll see that it's equivalent to {le se cusku pe mi ku pe do}.
> Wouldn't work for more that two relative clauses.

I hadn't noticed that.  I knew that there were the two possibilities {le
se cusku ku pe mi} and {le se cusku pe mi ku}, which parse differently,
but apparently mean the same thing, but I thought you could add as many
relative clauses as you wanted without need of {zi'e}.  It is strange
that you can have two but no more.

> (This leads me to wonder what the consequences of changing
> sumti-tail-1<112> = [quantifier] selbri [relative-clauses] | quantifier sumti
> to
> sumti-tail-1<112> = [quantifier] selbri | quantifier sumti
> in the BNF would be, other than making {le se cusku pe mi ku}
> ungrammatical.)

It would make things cleaner, it seems.  I always thought it strange
that relative clauses could be attached both sides of the {ku}, but I
hadn't realized that this was what allowed you to have two of them not
joined by {zi'e}.

Jorge