[FOM] natural language and the F of M

[Robert Williams]

Hartley Slater glosses: `(nx)Fx' as `there are exactly n Fs'

This seems grammatical for count predicates e.g.

             (nx) horse (x)
            there are exactly n horses

But is it even grammatical in the case of mass expressions? e.g.

             (nx) water(x)
(???)    there are exactly n waters.

Mass terms are characterized as those 'F' such that

                 not-(En)(nx)water(x)

So (???) must be well-formed in Hartley's system. But it does not seem to
me to be well formed in English... How would he gloss this sentence to
remove my doubts?

all best
Robert Williams


------------------------------------------------------------
J. Robert G. Williams
Arche AHRB Research Centre
Dept of Logic and Metaphysics
St Andrews
01334 460649
077 151 030 16
-------------------------------------------------------------