zompist bboard

clawgrip wrote:My own thought on the difference between 'some' and 'any' is that 'some' is always a finite, natural number (i.e. 1 or more) or real, existing thing, and typically represents a limited range or exact number/thing that is simply left unspecified. On the other hand, 'any' is generally infinite, and represents 0 or any conceivable number or object (even if context will often define the extents), and as such, is inherently unspecifiable .

This is why 'any' is useful for questions and negatives, where, no natural number or object is specified (i.e. "Do you know anyone who can help?" means "Do you know 1 person? 2 people? 3 people? etc." because I am not specifying any thing or number), but not quite as much for affirmative statements, where specific numbers/things are more likely to be required outside of hypotheticals or listener-choice statements, "he can do anything he wants," (i.e. "no matter what you think of, he can do it").

How about in cases like "Any half-wit could write this code."? To me, this implies a single individual, drawn at random from the set of half-wits. ?"Some half-wit could write this code" is questionable to me, but I can easily use "some" in a similar "Some half-wit wrote this code." -- which implies a specific individual (perhaps even one that is pragmatically obvious) from the set of half-wits.

Ollock wrote:

clawgrip wrote:My own thought on the difference between 'some' and 'any' is that 'some' is always a finite, natural number (i.e. 1 or more) or real, existing thing, and typically represents a limited range or exact number/thing that is simply left unspecified. On the other hand, 'any' is generally infinite, and represents 0 or any conceivable number or object (even if context will often define the extents), and as such, is inherently unspecifiable .

This is why 'any' is useful for questions and negatives, where, no natural number or object is specified (i.e. "Do you know anyone who can help?" means "Do you know 1 person? 2 people? 3 people? etc." because I am not specifying any thing or number), but not quite as much for affirmative statements, where specific numbers/things are more likely to be required outside of hypotheticals or listener-choice statements, "he can do anything he wants," (i.e. "no matter what you think of, he can do it").

How about in cases like "Any half-wit could write this code."? To me, this implies a single individual, drawn at random from the set of half-wits. ?"Some half-wit could write this code" is questionable to me, but I can easily use "some" in a similar "Some half-wit wrote this code." -- which implies a specific individual (perhaps even one that is pragmatically obvious) from the set of half-wits.

That's what I referred to as a "listener-choice" statement, i.e. "no matter which half-wit you choose, (s)he can write this code." It's the "drawn at random" part; the speaker is allowing the listener to do the drawing, in a sense.
I recognize that it may not be as cut-and-dry as I have laid it out, but I still feel that that is an essential difference between them.

Edit: here is a clearer summary of what I mean:

some: a specific person, thing, number of things/people, etc. is under discussion, but its identity is not explicitly indicated, because it is unknown, unclear, unimportant, etc.
any: no specific person, thing, number of things/people, etc. is under discussion; all people/things/etc. that fall within the specified parameters, if parameters have been specified, are equally able to fill the role indicated by 'any.'
- in affirmative statements, it is either generic or hypothetical
- in questions the speaker does not know if a specific thing etc. exists or not
- in negative statements a specific thing/etc. does not exist as a matter of course

'Some' can also act similarly the description I've given for 'any' when discussing amounts and numbers (e.g. "add some music to your day" means "any amount of music you want"), but not when discussing identity (e.g. "I could hear some music coming from somewhere" does not mean "I could hear any music I wanted coming from somewhere"); 'any' cannot ever perform the duties I've specified for 'some'.

Lots of the and the lots of mean different things!

finlay wrote:Lots of the and the lots of mean different things!

Yeah, I actually got that impression as I was editing. Basically the lots of cows actually gives me two meanings:

1) The auction lots that include cows.
2) A specific group of many cows that I've mentioned before.

Meaning (2) seems similar, though it's clear that the definite article is attaching to lots. Unfortunately, I can't really go back and edit out my derp.

a) The "lots of cows" you claimed you saw were actually just a big pile of dirt. You need new glasses.
b) Lots of the cows that were left outside during that blizzard died.

No outtakes?

finlay wrote:No outtakes?

William has been recording, and he doesn't record much material outside the main show. Plus, outtakes take time to put together. Sorry.

Also, new episode: Conlangery #88: Ancient Greek (natlang)

We have a new episode out: Conlangery #89: Polysynthesis

I also noticed that I forgot to share the last short with the forums, so here's the link to that: Conlangery Shorts #07: When do you insert your infix?. You'll also notice that I've separated the shorts out from the full episodes in the first-post list, to make it easier to look through.

That welsh village was a marketing gag originally, you know...

finlay wrote:That welsh village was a marketing gag originally, you know...

I didn't, actually. I didn't bother to read the Wikipedia article at the time, as Mike literally dropped it in as we were recording the show. In any case, assuming that it's a valid Welsh word using normal compounding rules, it's still useful to take a look at. I hold to my point that it's just a gigantic noun compound and not anything that justifies the label "polysynthetic", though people are welcome to argue the point.

No, you're right there.

haven't heard from you guys in ages!

finlay wrote:haven't heard from you guys in ages!

We're on hiatus.

i assumed, but you didn't actually send out a message to the effect for more than two weeks so i'd been wondering.

Apparently I've been severely neglecting this thread, so I'm going to update all at once the past three shorts. I'd also like to announce that I've talked to Mike and William and long-form episodes will be returning soon (our first recording is scheduled for next week).

Conlangery SHORTS #09: Phrasebook: Hello and Goodbye
Conlangery SHORTS #10: Phrasebook: How do you say …?
Conlangery SHORTS #11: Phrasebook: What time is it?

A very confusing thing about "half 4": in all other germanic langs, the equivalent phrase means 3:30 (halfway to 4). And in some, like dutch, you can also say "five to half 4" (vijf voor half vier, iirc) to mean 3:25.

Also in BrE the expressions "past" and "to" the hour are set, but in AmE you have other phrases like after, or till.

"Half eight" meaning 8:30 will never cease to confuse me. Obviously "half eight" should mean either 7:30 or 4:00, but it should never be anything higher than eight!

Except it's obviously short for "half past eight"

Long form episodes are back! Conlangery #90: Mailbag 1

Bump. Y'all still doing this?

*edit* It appears you are. Please keep this updated if you have time!