Re: Laranao modals, aspects, etc.

>From: Matt Pearson'<jmpearson@...>'
>Subject:      Re: Laranao modals, aspects, etc.
>Daniel Andreasson skrev:
>
>>The Laranao quantifiers:
>>        'those who...')
>>eto   * some sg. ('someone,something')
>>etao  * some pl.
>>
>>Did I miss any important quantifiers? Does this
>>look like a reasonable system?
>
>There are actually two kinds of "some" in English,
>and it's not clear which kind corresponds to
>"eto"/"etao":
>
>   There are some people in the garden.
>      (= an indefinite/non-specific number)
>
>   Some people like salsa music.
>      (= more than none, but less than all)

Not to be argumentative at all, but I would translate these sentences
using the logic equivalent of some; E(x): for at least one something, or
there exists at least one something.
So one would be
<There is at least one person in the garden.> Or maybe:
There is at least one member of a set of people in the garden. Or:
There exists at least one something such that it is a person and it is
in the garden.

and two would be
<There is at least one person who likes salsa music.> Or maybe
There exists at least one person such that it likes salsa music.

So to me the two "somes" are equivalent in these examples.  But in
general I agree, English quantifiers, such as "any", are not easily
translated to logic. What do you see here as the difference between the
two "somes"; which seem identical to me? To me both are
"indefinite/non-specific" and "more than none, but less than all".
But I am not arguing that my view is "right", due to the known
difficulties in english-to-logic translations.

xxx
Truly,
Jerry

>Cheers,
>Matt.
>