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interests / alt.usage.english / any weapons

any weapons

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Subject: any weapons
From: arthurvarr@gmail.com (arthurvv vart)
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by: arthurvv vart - Sat, 21 Oct 2023 04:13 UTC

1) They asked me where they could find any weapons.
2) They asked me where there were any weapons.

Do these imply:

a) They were desperate to find weapons and would be
happy if they found any. They were convinced that there
weren't that many weapons, maybe not even one.

or:

b) They wanted to find all of the locations where weapons,
any weapons at all, could be found. Maybe there were a lot
of places where there were weapons.

--
Gratefully,
Navi

Lost in the Twilight Zone of the English language
Interested in strange structures and sentences
Obsessed with ambiguity

Re: any weapons

<ugvvgh$1ktd7$1@dont-email.me>

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From: vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid (Hibou)
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Subject: Re: any weapons
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 08:44:17 +0100
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by: Hibou - Sat, 21 Oct 2023 07:44 UTC

Le 21/10/2023 à 05:13, arthurvv vart a écrit :
>
> 1) They asked me where they could find any weapons.
> 2) They asked me where there were any weapons.
>
> Do these imply:
>
> a) They were desperate to find weapons and would be
> happy if they found any. They were convinced that there
> weren't that many weapons, maybe not even one.
>
> or:
>
> b) They wanted to find all of the locations where weapons,
> any weapons at all, could be found. Maybe there were a lot
> of places where there were weapons.

I don't think I like either of them, and I'm not sure what they might
mean. They seem to conflate two things:

They asked me if there were any weapons.
They asked me where they could find them.

Re: any weapons

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Subject: Re: any weapons
From: petertdaniels@gmail.com (Peter T. Daniels)
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by: Peter T. Daniels - Sat, 21 Oct 2023 14:14 UTC

On Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 12:14:00 AM UTC-4, arthurvv vart wrote:

> 1) They asked me where they could find any weapons.
> 2) They asked me where there were any weapons.
>
> Do these imply:
>
> a) They were desperate to find weapons and would be
> happy if they found any. They were convinced that there
> weren't that many weapons, maybe not even one.
>
> or:
>
> b) They wanted to find all of the locations where weapons,
> any weapons at all, could be found. Maybe there were a lot
> of places where there were weapons.

"Any" is a neg-pol item, and there is no overt negative in those
sentences, so those sentences are quite fishy as they stand.
Context might make them understandable.

Cf. "Do you have any weapons?" Expected answer: No.
"Do you have some weapons?" Expected answer: Yes.

Subject	Author
any weapons	arthurvv vart
Re: any weapons	Hibou
Re: any weapons	Peter T. Daniels