From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Dec 07 12:10:24 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:10:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1L9PxQ-0003AH-Lc for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:10:24 -0800 Received: from sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no ([129.241.210.67]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1L9PxI-00038l-8D for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:10:24 -0800 Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (unknown [IPv6:2001:700:300:2000:2a0:c9ff:feab:76e2]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6AA0A94781 for ; Sun, 7 Dec 2008 21:09:50 +0100 (CET) Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (8.13.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id mB7K9n4r023677 for ; Sun, 7 Dec 2008 21:09:49 +0100 Received: (from arj@localhost) by hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (8.13.8/8.13.1/Submit) id mB7K9nJb023676 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 7 Dec 2008 21:09:49 +0100 Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 21:09:48 +0100 From: Arnt Richard Johansen To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] x2 of klani Message-ID: <20081207200948.GG13298@nvg.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-NVG-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-NVG-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: arj@nvg.ntnu.no Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-Spam-Score: -0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 15094 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arj@nvg.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list I'm cleaning up lujvo definitions in Jbovlaste, and today, the turn has come to {muclai}, which in noralujv is defined thus: smuci+klani: spoonful: x1 = klani1 (quantity), x2 = smuci1 (spoon) = klani2 (quantifier), x3 = klani3 (scale of quantity) klani2 is a stumbling block to me, as it is not obvious what the x2 in the gismu definitions refers to: x1 is a quantity quantified/measured/enumerated by x2 (quantifier) on scale x3 (si'o) WordNet lists two senses of "quantifier": 1. (logic) a word (such as 'some' or 'all' or 'no') that binds the variables in a logical proposition 2. (grammar) a word that expresses a quantity (as 'fifteen' or 'many') Neither of these seem appropriate. Similarly, the dictionary entries for "quantify", measure and enumerate all seem to have exclusively agentive meanings, except for sense 27 of "measure" in Random House Unabridged Dictionary: "to serve as the measure of: Her sacrifices measure the degree of her love." Is this relevant? .i le klani be le jdini poi do dunda cu .e'a jai se jdice do (N. Nicholas, What is Lojban?) "You are free to decide the amount ??? money that you donate." (literal translation by me) "Contributions can be as small or as great as you like" (canonical translation by N. Nicholas) Now, what can be learnt from usage, if anything? Let us examine the following instances. i mo'a da kulnu gismu ije le se klani be loi gismu tarmi cu banzu le nu finti lo selsumji gismu "There are too few cultural gismu, and the ??? of gismu forms go beyond the invention of original gismu." doi mamta do djuno xu lo du'u lo denpesxu poi nenri pa tubnu cu klani makau "Mother, do you know what is the ??? of toothpaste that is in one tube?" ni'o re mai lo ciska kantu sinxa cu klani li re mu (J. J. Llambías, la ckuzda pe la babel) "2. The amount of discrete writing symbols ??? 25" So in general, it seems that users of Lojban believe that what goes into one of the places is the description of some substance, and another of the places is some indication of how much there is of that substance. But they don't seem to agree on which is which -- in the first example, it seems that the quantity goes into the x1 and the mass of stuff goes into x2, while in the other examples, the situation is reversed. Furthermore, what type of sumti can go into the x2? Is it a number? (Jorge's example is the only one that fills in the x2 explicitly.) But if it is a number, how can it also be a spoon, as the place structure of {muclai} seems to imply? -- Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ Information wants to be anthropomorphized! 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.