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Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 16:39:20 +0100
From: Zefram <zefram@fysh.org>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban] is minli irregular?
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{minli} is the units word for local long distance units.  The regular
place structure for non-metric units is "x1 is x2 (default 1) foo units in
the relevant quality, by standard x3, plus x4 subunits, x5 subsubunits,
...".  According to the official gismu list, {minli} uniquely does not
follow this place structure.  It has x3 and x4 reversed; thus x3=subunits
and x4=standard.  However, looking at the three definitions for {minli}
in jbovlaste, it appears that only two, the English and Esperanto,
give this irregular place structure.  The Spanish definition gives the
regular place structure, with x3=standard and x4=subunits.

Which definition is actually intended?  I see no particular reason for
subunits to be relatively more important to {minli} than other unit words,
so this looks like an editorial error in the gismu list.  Is it?

And a related irregularity: the definition of {rupnu} (local major
monetary unit) makes no mention of subunits.  Is that intentional?
I'd say that subunits are quite frequently used with monetary units,
but of course they're mostly decimal-based subunits, so I can see why
the subunits places might have been omitted.

(See what I'm up to at <http://www.lojban.org/jbovlaste/wiki/quantities>.)

-zefram