From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Thu Apr 2 17:38:12 1992 Return-Path: Date: Thu Apr 2 17:38:12 1992 Message-Id: <9204021739.AA05114@relay1.UU.NET> Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: sets and masses (was: Quine text) X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: <9204012008.AA02778@relay1.UU.NET>; from "And Rosta" at Apr 1, 92 9:03 pm Status: RO la .and. rost. cusku di'e > Note that in English we can say: > The dodo, which couldn't fly, is extinct. > I think to say this in Lojban you'd have to say 'dodo' twice with a > different descriptor each time? In effect, but not in fact. There is a group of words whose purpose is to convert a sumti from one type to another: lu'a 'the individuals/members of...' lu'o 'the mass formed from...' lu'i 'the set formed from...' I haven't thought the matter out properly, but let us suppose that "x1 is extinct" is taken to be a set property. Then we can say: lo'i cipnrdodo noi lu'a ke'a na ka'e vofli cu cabnalzasti the-set-of dodos such-that the-members-of it aren't capable-of flying are-presently-non-existing. The lujvo is quite shaky, but the point is illustrated. What makes this possible, of course, is the Hebrew-style relative clause, with marker "noi" (non-restrictive) at the beginning and pronoun "ke'a" at any desired point, in this case within the scope of "lu'a". -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban