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> xorxes:
> > The (present?) material world is not especially favoured by the
> > _grammar_ as the universe of discourse, although it is a very
> > frequent obvious choice in many contexts.
>
> Okay, but one would like to somehow be able to make unambiguous
> claims to the effect that exactly two things have the property of
> doctorhood in the world in which I need them.
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That would be {re da mikce}, "exactly two things have the
property of being a doctor".

> In other words,
> that one can go out into the world in which my needing occurs,
> and find & grab hold of these two individuals that are doctors.

By "universe of discourse" I mean the set of things that we may
make reference to in a given discourse. In one context, {lo mikce}
may have a single referent in the universe of discourse, in other
contexts it may have more than one. In any context,
{mi nitcu re lo mikce} says that exactly two of the referents of
{lo mikce} (from all the referents of the universe of discourse)
are such that I need them. In that discourse, I don't need any
of the other referents of {lo mikce} (from all the referents
in the universe of discourse).

> For clarity, a second example: There is an ambiguity in "I drew
> two unicorns" that doesn't exist in "I ate two unicorns". How
> can one remove the ambiguity, if one wanted to do so?

Do you mean the "I drew two unicorns" that is like "I took
a photograph of two unicorns" vs. the "I drew two unicorns"
that is like "I made two unicorns out of clay"? maybe we can
distinguish them with different predicates:

mi pirfi'i lo re pavyseljirna
I picture-created two unicorns.

mi pirfukygau lo re pavyseljirna
I picture-copy-made two unicorns.

You can draw two unicorns into existence, but you can't
eat them into existence, so that would be the difference
between those predicates.

> > I think that unless the grammar is to impose an ontology,
> > that distinction can't be made with gadri. One way to make
> > it is through prediacates: "is a subkind of", "is an instance
> > of"
>
> I understand your reasoning, but "lo instance of lo mikce"
> would not guarantee that we are referring to actual instances;
> we could be referring to imaginable instances. That's why
> I can't see how to do it without involving gadri. (More
> precisely, I can't see how to do it without having a way
> to distinguish quantification over subkinds from quantification
> over instances.)

Would that require fixing the universe of discourse
to the one set of referents we all agree are true material
indivisible objects in the real meterial world, irrespective
of context? I don't think that's desirable, but I'm not sure
it's even possible. For some broda we may all agree on what
counts as a true individual concrete real single broda for
any and all contexts, but for many broda we won't, it will
depend on context.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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