From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Sep 06 07:11:53 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:11:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MkITB-0000JE-0c for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:11:53 -0700 Received: from mail-yw0-f192.google.com ([209.85.211.192]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MkIT6-0000Cz-C4 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:11:52 -0700 Received: by ywh30 with SMTP id 30so3240244ywh.25 for ; Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:11:40 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=AFBKeDtJQNd3E/pmHmsOX1xKtW5zIQfSRsDzptrBoaw=; b=oPzc+N7YkD7HC8dhEjbLD8yoi9sp810quf2dHTncbIMoIsXHhl8UDtBOTz+eobx6+H D6ABynvbtuydU59oQY9jiujxfsVFuW1ZVeJ4jPL6YmYCPYayNXBPPkeH/viUmMOyBPFh NYq/72vt/trYZn7VEaaFLwMSAmyxnvxMDVSVA= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=PmdraPRUcs3jbN6QS3Krc0KpWtvZrGIKqaaATm8Xm2yijATPRH8Btn40Qb0nAJb1Dm 62PozxMfCYGsof5/hikIxMQvJtTGmv8VLTq4Ky6F1191lVxx4GKCOF5habU6DLUKVT5x aec8Q9bX1RnyNoIyapPc2QawVfiHEur+X4jXw= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.90.134.2 with SMTP id h2mr10259613agd.110.1252246300352; Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:11:40 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <9ada8ecd0909060036m5027ae8h123217ef081c4bd0@mail.gmail.com> References: <9ada8ecd0909060036m5027ae8h123217ef081c4bd0@mail.gmail.com> Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 11:11:40 -0300 Message-ID: <925d17560909060711p19f4dba5vb1eb94dc877bebba@mail.gmail.com> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: sets are rare? From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-archive-position: 2210 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 4:36 AM, Squark Rabinovich wrote: > > Several times I have encountered the claim that lojban sets are rarely used. Personally, I don't use them at all. > This appears strange to me, for the following reason. Certain gismu , such > as cmima , simxu and probably others expect a set for an arguments. Yes, several gismu definitions do that. I just ignore it because it never adds anything to the meaning, all it does is force an unnecessary level of clumsiness for saying certain things. > For > instance, I was trying to translate into lojban "We teach each other". The > result was > lu'i mi'o simxu le nu ctuca > The lu'i is needed here to transform the mass mi'o into the set needed for > simxu . Without it, the meaning would be something like "each of us is a set > the elements of which teach each other". To get "each of us" it would have to be "ro mi'o", "mi'o" by itself does not force a distributive meaning. But yes, if we take the definition as written, we would be saying that we are a set, which obviously we are not, we are people. I prefer to adapt the definition to "x1 (plural) mutually do x2", and skip sets altogether. > So, why are sets rarely used? Another advantage of ignoring sets is that you can say things like: mi'o simxu lo nu ctuca kei gi'e cilre so'i da We teach one another and learn many things. You couldn't coordinate "simxu" with "cilre" if one required a set and the other required people in the x1. mu'o mi'e xorxes