[lit-ideas] Re: Ownership and the possessive case
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 15:12:26 EDT
In a message dated 5/6/2009 3:02:35 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes:
'I broke my finger' entails 'I broke a finger,'
----
Very true.
I think Grice considers also (this is in "Further notes on logic and
conversation"; he is discussing the alleged different senses of 'a' -- as they
get symbolised by '(Ex)'):
"I broke one of MY FINGERS"
For surely I would think "I broke my finger" is, in the words of T.
Williamson ("Vagueness"), 'vague'.
Joshi considers a similar case,
"My ball itches"
it was undecided by female native speakers (they failed to have the proper
native-speaker intuitition) whether the use of the possessive here
_entails_ 'uniqueness'.
Cheers,
JLS
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