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From: groover@netcom.com (Robert Groover)
Subject: Re: Sum: 'I take these books'
Message-ID: <grooverDuHGt9.GGF@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <fmart-1207960056030001@news.ua.pt>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 13:15:09 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:57347 sci.lang.translation:7700

fmart@relay.ua.pt (Fernando J. S. Martinho) writes:
>(Which books do you take?  -Ill take these books.)

>3. " "   "  "  -Ill take three.  (G=9, U=1)
>It seems also that at least one of you judges as ungrammatical sentence 3
>(Ill take three).  Nobody wants to reconsider?
This would be a perfectly proper answer to "How many...", but I insist 
that this is NOT properly an answer to "Which...".  
I think that English never uses a bare numeral as deictic:
one must say "these three" or "those three" or "all three" or "any three" or 
some such.

Robert Groover   groover@netcom.com   (PGP key on request)
Member ECS, AVS, ACM, OSA, Sen.Mem.IEEE, Reg'd Patent Atty
        "All men by nature desire knowledge."

