Cancelling Old-English 'dual' implicature with Chaucer's plural

J:

"the traditional anglo-saxon (and german ich denke) had a case marking for two, I believe, separate from the singular and plural."

Yes. I think the relic is in 'both'.

"Both my eyes are pretty," says Cyclops.

It may be argued that this is FALSE since he only has ONE eye.

In this concern,

"My ideas are always clever"

contrasts with

"Both my ideas are always clever".

Since 'always' is a red-herring (metaphorically) -- I mean, it's NOT a red-herring, actually -- I will drop it:

"My ideas are clever" -- IMPLICATES but does not entail, "there are more than ONE idea that I entertain and which are clever".

"Both my ideas are clever" seems to have LEXICALISED 'duality' (and thus 'plurarity,', in this non-Anglo-Saxon conception of things).

I discussed this with Horn. I used to believe that 'bisexual' works like 'bicycle'. ("He is bisexual; therefore, he is straight"). He would rather argue that a bicycle is NOT a monocycle.

---- (He would quote Hirschberg to his defense, "A theory of scalar implicature". What I was into was a 'rank', not a 'scale').

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"the traditional anglo-saxon (and german ich denke) had a case marking for two, I believe, separate from the singular and plural."

Yes, 'both' and 'twin' and 'between', seem to be relics. But note that in the case of the Greek, this was a matter of the verb-ending (conjugation). I should revise what the two forms for 'run' (plural) were (as opposed to 'runs' singular).

Horses run. -- plural

They run. ---- plural.

The Greeks (Ancient Greeks) were able to GET, out of the mere form:

"They run"
"They run"

whether 'they' was 'dual' or not.

This they possibly thought a very important thing. I don't think I do. By the same token, why not have a verbal-ending for EACH different number:

"They run" (meaning 3, the Three stooges)
and so on.

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Levinson has noted that numerals are a trick anyways (his "Theory of Generalised Conversational Implicature"). Much of the blame comes from the fact that we have five fingers in each hand. In some tribes, more than 'five' is rendered as 'many' and 'infinite'. He discussed this in a specific section of his long treatise, which I provided the summary and index elsewhere --. Should check it out.

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So, at some point, the Old English system of the 'dual' must have been thought 'otiose'. And so, what possibly was an 'entailment' for the Anglo-Saxons ("both my eyes are pretty") became a mere implicature in plural (rather than dual) for the Chaucerians.

Of course, all this is confused wording just to motivate you! Teasing.