WikiDiscuss

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> OK. But it does have one off-putting
> consequence: The person who answers "What's in
> the box?" with "Nothing" has given on xorxes'
> view the right answer, there is nothing in the
> universe of discourse in the box (I'm assuming
> that air molecules have not been talked aobut
> recently, since that would usually cue the
> answerer to use them in the answer).

Right.

> Thus, the
> response pointing to the air molecules in the box
> (we do agree that they were there all the time
> don't we?) is not an acceptable correction

Well, in some cases it might be. In fact, many people rejoice
in making such corrections. It is not a nice correction (unless
for some reason it was important to consider air as a thing),
but once made, we have to deal with it. "There is nothing in the
box!", "yes there is, there's air in it!", "Well, yes, but
I meant that there's nothing but air in the box".

> (and
> by the way bringing something from the universe
> into the light) but a piece of Gricean dirty
> pool, changing the game in mid stream. Not a
> move we ought to be recommending.

It's a move that happens all the time. In what sense we
ought not recommend it?

> > No, quantifiers don't refer. Saying "some cows"
> > "all cows" or "no cows" just introduces cows.
> > {ro lo bakni}, {su'o lo bakni}, {no lo bakni}
> > and {lo bakni} will all require {lo bakni} to
> > have referents in the universe of discourse.
> > The quantifiers just quantify over those
> > referents,
> > they don't introduce them.
>
> Were the cows there before or not?

I have no idea, what's the context? If we are in a cow farm
the cows will probably be there from the start. In this
discussion, there were no cows until we started talking
about them.

> If not then
> the use of the expression must introduce them, if
> they were there already, where are the limits? I
> pass over our differences about what "refers"
> means.

I'm not sure what kind of limits you are talking about.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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