Hi,
I didn't put the link in my first post as I didn't intent to discuss it in terms of predicate logic. I got some training in mathematics so I'm familiar with quantifiers but I learnt it previously to English language. I've just recently started getting back to the problems of logic and philosophy of language but in English only.
So I'm more interested with ambiguity or disambiguation in natural language, that's English. Some examples are quite simple to grasp; but not the one with '
some cat'.
In every day life the ambiguity is ruled out by context alone or situation of an utterance.
Let's take: (I'll replace the 'some' to perhaps more natural sounding 'there is ')
There is chocolate for all of you.
There is chocolate for each of you.
There is chocolate for every one of you.
I think the first is the most ambiguous in the same way or in the same sense as the unfortunate example with cat. The last one I find to be the least ambiguous.
How to disambiguate such statement in natural language ? Is there any good literature on that ?
Cheers
PS. I think there was and still is a point in discussing sentences such as the famous 'colourless green ideas sleep furiously' or 'apples grows on noses'. Even though the sentences are completely nonsensical. I think it is their nonsensical nature that helps us to focus on its structure without being to distracted with its actual meaning.
Whether something stands contrary to the factual information of the world we might have (what I understand Mike is talking about), may be in some discussions irrelevant. Interestingly it's exactly where and where we start talking about the impossible or non-existing entities where most models of language collapse and where in logic the paradoxes start surfacing.