From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Thu Aug 04 11:35:49 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:35:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E0kZB-0004ym-At for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:35:41 -0700 Received: from wproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.184.196]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E0kZ8-0004ya-AQ for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:35:41 -0700 Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id i23so502305wra for ; Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:35:36 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=lSEAsMSxxxWNjwVcF4MuxigMl/r/hckaukM4D+I8vSVrCsYaD/i5bJcVmc3aOChItD6NZ8txIlFwu9MInlOLSSuRR6lG+pv9vNZV72LMQq+n+E9ktrf/HKtzwruOuEq5ojLwG07l93cQM8BHRMCuWTB8fAf5IpuTJJ9jAjQwyPg= Received: by 10.54.143.13 with SMTP id q13mr1770722wrd; Thu, 04 Aug 2005 11:35:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.54.68.12 with HTTP; Thu, 4 Aug 2005 11:35:35 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <925d1756050804113558366203@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 15:35:35 -0300 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: the meter is a unit of length In-Reply-To: <20050804155420.43374.qmail@web81308.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <925d17560508040732149c1eeb@mail.gmail.com> <20050804155420.43374.qmail@web81308.mail.yahoo.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 10304 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 8/4/05, John E Clifford wrote: > What we mean when we say the English > sentence is something like {le se mitre cu ni > clani}, "How many meters a thing is is its > length," more or less (we could fill in some of > the blanks for greater precision here). {le se mitre} is a pure number. We can say, for example le se mitre be ti cu du le se grake be ta The number of meters of this is the the number of grams of that. {ni} has been used or described both as a klani and as a se klani. If it's a se klani, then {lo se mitre cu ni ...} can make sense. lo mitre cu klani lo se mitre cu se klani {ni} may be one of those, or perhaps something else ({ka (se) la'u ma kau}, for example). > This > doesn't *say* that the meter is a unit of length, > but does the work that claim is meant to do and > so implicates it. Given Lojban's predicatizing > of measures, it is a little hard to see what can > go in for the first place of {gradu}, if that > word means anything like its English translation > (which it very well may not, of course -- and > this problem seems some indication that it does > not). I would say that the x1 of gradu is like the x1 of mitre and of klani. lo gradu be ko'a = lo klani be li pa bei ko'a > > What is the difference between the x2 and x3 of > > {gradu}? > > Trusting the English more than seems justified, > x2 is a scale (presumably a system of measures: > vaious units and some external specifications of > them (the old scratch on a platinum-iridium bar > or some weird multiple of the wavelength of some > color in some spectrum). It is interesting that > that is marked as {si'o}, the same as one > suggested marker to convert {mitre} into "is a > meter." The gi'uste more or less consistently proposes {si'o} for "scales", whatever they are: ckilu [ ci'u ] scale x1 (si'o) is a scale of units for measuring/observing/determining x2 (state) gradu [ rau ] unit ; 'degree, grad' x1 [magnitude] is a unit/degree of/on scale/reference standard x2 (si'o) measuring property x3 klani [ lai ] quantity x1 is a quantity quantified/measured/enumerated by x2 (quantifier) on scale x3 (si'o) merli [ mre ] measure x1 (agent) measures/evaluates x2 [quantity] as x3 units on scale x4 (si'o), with accuracy x5 dukti [ dut ] opposite ; 'contrary' x1 is polar opposite from/contrary to x2 in property/on scale x3 (property/si'o) But it is not clear to me how a bridi gets converted to a scale, and also {si'o} is proposed for very different things in {bangu}, {klesi}, {manri}, {sidbo}, {sucta} and {tanru}. > x3 is just some property (or, more > likely, the quantitative aspect of some property > -- {ni}) If ni is the quantitative aspect of a property (which I might write as {ka se la'u ma kau ...}) then it's not clear how it can be a number, like se mitre, se klani, te merli or namcu. mu'o mi'e xorxes To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.