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From: Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: {pi} & {ro}
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 09:13:24 -0400
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On Wednesday 06 June 2007 07:21, Vid Sintef wrote:
> The Book chapter 18:
>
> 8.10)  mi citka pino'o lei nanba
> I eat a-typical-amount-of the-mass-of bread.
>
> The translation seems to me not correct. Or am I again misreading some
> principle?
>
> "the-mass-of" sounds more like {ro}, as in:
>
> 8.8)  mi citka piro lei nanba
> I eat the-whole-of the-mass-of bread
>
> and {pi} sounds more like "the-whole-of", as in, in addition to the above
> one:
>
> piso'a  PA+PA   almost the whole of
>
> What distinguishes {ro} and {pi}, according to the Book, is the difference
> between "elements of totality" and "part of a whole", respectively.

"the-mass-of" is expressed by the article {lei}. If you have five loaves of 
bread, {le nanba} considers them as five things, while {lei nanba} considers 
them as one.

{pi} is the decimal point. When used with numbers like {ro}, it produces a 
number in the interval [0..1], whereas without {pi} they would be in the 
interval [0..however many things there are]. So, assuming the five loaves of 
bread:
{vo le nanba} means four loaves of bread.
{pivo le nanba} means 4/10 of a single loaf of bread.
{vo lei nanba} means twenty loaves of bread, which is nonsense.
{pivo lei nanba} means two loaves of bread, or 4/10 of each loaf, or any 
combination thereof.
{ro le nanba} means five loaves of bread.
{piro le nanba} means an entire loaf of bread (I'm not sure).
{ro lei nanba} means five loaves of bread, as one mass.
{piro lei nanba} also means five loaves of bread as one mass.

Pierre