Re: When is plural applied?

On Thu, Apr 15, 2004 at 06:52:59AM -0700, Philippe Caquant wrote:

> male and female. But not for day and night (insofar we
> consider day and night as the two only possibilities,
> and don't bother for dawns and evenings). I thought of
> "there cannot be such thing as day if there is not
> such thing as night", because day defines night and
> reciprocally: day is not(night), night is not(day). In
> case of hands, it's not exactly the same: left is
> not(right) and right is not(left), but left hand is
> not(not right hand): the concept of symetry doesn't
> depend of hands, hands only are an example for that
> general concept.
Actually, the idea that day is not(night) and night is
not(day) is very planet-centric.  Offplanet, I don't
think you can say that all timespans are either day or
night.  How far away from the Sun do you have to go
before it stops being day and starts being night?

Amanda

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