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From: mezohe <wow.jvs@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] Speaking about matters of degree
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Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2020 22:10:21 +0100
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2020-12-18 04:26 scope845hlang343jbo@icebubble.org:
> I am wondering how one might express statements or questions, in Lojban,
> about matters of degree.  For example, I might ask:
> 
>   "Why is the inside of my car as cold as it is?"
> 
> When I try to express that in Lojban, I get:
> 
>   ri'a ma le nenri be le mi karce cu lenku co ...
> 
> and I can't figure out how to finish the sentence.  If I say {mutce}, I
> am asking why the inside of my car is very cold.  I'm not asking about
> the degree of coldness.  I want to ask why the DEGREE of coldness is as
> great as it is.  How would you express a question like this in Lojban?
> 

What first comes to mind is saying {tai} for any use of "so":

  lo nenri ri'a ma tai lenku

which is, well, an idiom, and we don't want any of that in this
language, do we.

Trying to focus the question on the degree, you could use {kau}, perhaps
with a relative clause to say it's a high degree:

  ri'a ma lo nenri cu xo kau va'e co lenku
  .i ri'a ma lo nenri cu me ma kau [noi barda] va'e co lenku
  .i ri'a ma ma kau [noi barda] cu ni lo nenri cu lenku
  .i ri'a ma lo nenri se la'u ma kau [noi barda] cu lenku

where {broda ti ta ma kau} would expand to something like {broda ti ta Q
poi'i broda ti ta ke'a}, substituting your favourite quantifier for Q.

You might notice that this use seems distinct from how la tsani uses
{kau} in the other thread. Known issue. Related reading from 2015:

https://mw.lojban.org/papri/UserWiki:Ilmen/lo_smuni_be_zo_kau

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