Re: Cowan's summary #3: any old X at all

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

la djer. cusku di'e

> John and others seem to agree that all the meaning  in the English "any"
> can be captured by a universal quantifier or an attitude marker.

Not at all.  Sometimes "any" is existential, not universal.

> I disagree.  Consider this meaning from my Webster's:
> 
> "1: one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind:
> 1a: one or another taken at random <ask ~man you meet>."
> 
> There are two anys here. One taken indiscriminately or some taken
> indiscriminately. I want to consider the case of one taken
> indiscriminately. It certainly cannot be expressed as "all". Neither is
> it an just an attitude.  We're talking about quantification here, namely
> one something.

Note, however, that the Webster example is an imperative!  You wouldn't say
in English "I asked any man I met."  You would say "I asked a man that I met"
(existential) or else "I asked every man that I met" (universal).
The need for "any"s comes up when we have some kind of opaque context,
including an imperative; invariably (I claim) this involves a subordinated
abstraction clause.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.