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Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 20:08:31 +0100
From: selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] [Oz] {ji'i}
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la .iesk. cu cusku di'e
> Hello Selpa'i,

Hello.

> do you use {ji'i} in a sense different from what CLL has?

Yes, slightly.

> I don't know the English source text, but from context it seems
> implausible that there are 'ca. 34 chairs' ('30-and-circa-4 chairs')
> in the farm house, which is how I normally understand {lo ci ji'i vo
> stizu}.
>
> Does {ci ji'i vo} mean 'three to four' or something like that in the
> Oz text? If so, could you explain if that is the usual meaning of
> {ji'i} (in which case I have been misunderstanding CLL) or a deviant
> usage?

The way I use {ji'i} (and I don't want to take credit for something 
xorxes has been doing before me), {ci ji'i vo} means "three or four" as 
in a number that's somewhere around 3 and 4. The way in which this 
differs from CLL is that I treat {ji'i} like {su'o} et al. in that it 
breaks up number strings. For example:

    (1a) su'o ci su'e mu
         "at least three at most five"

This is a number made up of two parts: {su'o ci} and {su'e mu}, 
implicitly connected by {.e}, so (1a) is the same as (1b):

    (1b) vei su'o ci .e su'o mu
        "at least three and at most five"

(The {vei} will hopefully become unecessary soon)

Another example, using {ro}:

    (2) ro ci lo gerku
        "all three of the dogs"

And (2a) is again the same as (2b):

    (2b) vei ro .e ci lo gerku
         "all of the dogs and three of the dogs"

(Since Lojban quantifiers are exact, this entails that {ro} equals {ci}.)

So, having multiple number strings adjacent to each other means the same 
as connecting them with {.e}, except when {.e} is not applicable, in 
which case it is {.a}.

Now, the CLL wants {ji'i} to appear as a normal digit inside a larger 
number, but I agree with xorxes that this is confusing. Parsing numbers 
on the fly is already difficult, because you need to hear up to three 
digits before you know where they all go and unlike {su'o} et al., 
{ji'i} doesn't break up the number grouping, which makes it even harder 
to parse. So I like to use {ji'i} more like {su'o}/{za'u}/{su'e}/{me'i}/...

{ci ji'i vo} is actually a shortcut for (3):

     (3) ji'i ci ji'i vo
         "about three [and] about four"
         "somewhere around three or four"

With an implicit {.e} connecting them.

You may ask how to get the CLL meanings of {ci ji'i vo}. My answer to 
that question is to use {su'i}:

     (4) vei ci no su'i ji'i vo
         "[exactly] thirty plus approximately four"

(again, the {vei} is just as unnecessary as the {ku} in {ku joi} was)

So the CLL meaning is by no means inaccessible, while {ji'i} becomes 
more usable and numbers become saner to humans.

mi'e la selpa'i mu'o


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