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Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 17:39:58 +0100
From: selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] [oz] {lo prenu cu cmamau lo makcu}
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la .asiz. cu cusku di'e
> The full sentence is
>    {lo prenu cu cmamau lo makcu poi dy ke'a se slabu}.
> {lo prenu} refers to what turns out to be three Munchkins and the Witch
> of the North, and dy is Dorothy.
>
> The plausible interpretation is of course distributive,
>    {ro lo prenu cu cmamau ro lo makcu}.
>
> But, if predicates are to be defined on plural variables, shouldn't the
> original sentence mean that the bunch of prenu is, collectively, smaller
> than the bunch of makcu?

{lo} doesn't say that they act collectively. It does not rule out the 
collective interpretation, but here it's not likely to mean that and 
{gunma} would have been clearer.

> Is the translation wrong?

In my opinion it's correct.

> Or is the sentence ambiguous?

It's vague, but not damagingly so, as you were easily able to tell what 
it meant.

> If so, how to unambiguously convey the collective interpretation?

For that you could use {loi}/{lo gunma be lo}:

   (1) loi prenu cu cmamau loi makcu poi dy ke'a se slabu
       "The mass of people was collectively smaller than the mass of 
grown-ups Dorothy was familiar with."

And of course (1) means something rather different from the original 
sentence.

> Keep notice that {cmamau} is unusual in that it is not cumulative in x1.
> Also, it is not distributive in x2.

We have these people and we have the grown-ups Dorothy is familiar with. 
The former are smaller than the latter. That's as much as my version says.

mi'e la selpa'i mu'o

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