Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

la djan cusku di'e
>  An inner quantifier with a lo-series descriptor (lo, loi, lo'i, lo'e)
> is an incidental comment on the size of the (veridical) set.  So saying
> "lo'i su'o tanxe" is the same as "lo'i ro tanxe", given that at least
> one box exists.
>
> It's only in the le-series (and the la-series, which follows the same
> semantic rules) that inner quantifiers do in-mind subselection.

I think even for the le-series the inner quantifier is always equivalent
to {ro}.

{re le mu tanxe} is "two of the five boxes I have in mind".  Five is all
of them, so "five" doesn't make any subselection.  (Unless you consider
it a subselection from all boxes, but I don't think that's how it works,
even ignoring the veridicality issue.)

The default {su'o} is necessary only because the outside default is
{ro}.  If the inside was left as {ro} as well, then you could use {le
broda} to mean "nothing", (each of the broda from the zero I have in
mind), which would be very bad and confusing.  But even that default
inner {su'o} is equivalent to {ro}.  The outside quantifier selects from
all of those that I have in mind, which are at least one.

Jorge