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Re: [jboske] xoi'a



On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Jorge Llambias wrote:

>
> la xod cusku di'e
>
> >As for overspecificity, when compared to the tenses of ta'e or the
> >variants of nu, I hardly think that charge sticks.
>
> I confess I was never able to tell the difference between ta'e
> and na'o, but other than that I don't think they are overspecific.
>
> My comment about overspecific had to do with why linear and
> exponential specifically. What about quadratic, cubic, other powers,
> tangential, sinusoidal, and so many other possible rates of
> variation? Are linear and exponential all that special?



They are basic ones that come up in common discourse (ih certain
circles). sin is the only one that similarly arises, it is desirable too.


>
> >We can use tenses like xoi'a, but if we had numbers (the sort of
> >pseudo-digits unique to Lojban, like du'e) that signalled different types
> >of increase, this could be a more general solution. If xoi'a'a meant
> >linear increase, then
> >
> >mi ja'a xi xoi'a'a plana (my obesity increases linearly)
>
> It can't do that for very long though, assuming obesity is
> proportional to weight. If it isn't, then saying that increase
> is linear is meaningless unless we know what the scale is.
> My objection is that "linearly" does not tell me much here.


Linearity has nothing to do with the scale. What extra information did you
want that's not being provided here? The slope? It sounds like a very odd
criticism.



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