Re: `at least one ' vrs `one or more'

["Lee Daniel Crocker (none)" <lcrocker@MERCURY.COLOSSUS.NET>]

> I grepped the reference grammar to no avail.  How does one speak of
> hypothetical entities?  That-which-doesn't-exist-but-for-discussion-is a
> whatever.  For example, "A duck walks into a bar" {le datka cu cadzu le
> kafybarja}.  I'm not talking about a real duck.  I'm not even calling a
> real object a duck.  Could {le datka} refer to my non-existant,
> hypothetical duck?  If so, then {le nu} could be a non-existant,
> hypothetical event, no?

Yes, we can always wiggle out with the {le} hedge.  {le datka} and
{le nu cadzu} can refer to anything, real or hypothetical; that's
the nature of {le}.  The question is about gismu that take "event"
places, and possibly {lo nu broda}.  If, for example, you are
waiting for a duck to enter the bar, are you in fact waiting
for an event, or are you waiting for the proposition that some
event occurs to become true?

While it might be "cleaner" in some sense to fix all those
gismu definitions to do the latter, I think that's neither
necessary nor desirable.  I can't see any problem at all with
{lo nu broda}s that aren't actual {lo fasnu}, and that's much
more consistent with the rest of the refgram, and the {du'u}
constructions are just awkwardness without extra clarity.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC