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Revision as of 23:20, 4 February 2022

Grammatically, a quantifier is a particle that consumes a predicate phrase and produces a noun phrase.

For example: sa “some” is a quantifier, bỉo “…is a cup” is a predicate phrase, and sa bỉo is a noun phrase meaning “some cup(s)”.

These particles are called “quantifiers” because they semantically corrsepond to a logical quantifier over a now-bound variable, plus an occurence of that variable. The consumed predicate phrase doubles both as a domain and a name for the variable.

In short, sa bỉo does three things:

  1. introduces an existentially bound variable bío to the clause;
  2. specifies that it refers to a cup (or some cups: see plural logic);
  3. acts in its place in the sentence as an instance of this variable.

Hẻaq jí sa bỉo.