Message-Id: <199308161411.AA02631@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 1993 00:09:54 +1000
Reply-To: Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>
Subject:      Re: Cupfuls (Was: Some how do you say it's)
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
In-Reply-To:  <no.id> from "Colin Fine" at Aug 16, 93 10:15:04 am
Status: O

To Colin Fine respond I thus:

#So you're saying that kabrylai should mean
#
#x1 is a quantity of x2 measured in cups [by standard x3]
#
#but this is directly reversed from all the pre-defined
#measure words.
#Suppose my local volume measure is cupfuls (eg I'm in
#the world of US cookery). Then cupful is also
#dekpu: x1 is x2 local volume unit(s) (ie cups), x3 subunits (defaults 1),
# standard x4
#
#I really don't like this. If the latter is a good idea for defining
#measure words, then -lai compounds should have it too,
#and b*****r  dikyjvo.

I do believe that's one asterisk too many, Colin %^) .

I interpret this problem (and it may not have shown in my posting, but I do
think it a problem) differently: if your jvajvo aren't giving you the place
structure you want, the problem is not with jvajvo. It's with the place
structure of {klani}, which you're trying to fit into something it isn't
intended to. Switching x1 and x2 would have the match of matching {ckaji} and
all the measure-words; but given the current place structure, what the jvajvo
says is merely what the tanru says, and a {kabri klani}, too, is a quantifier.

*-lai* isn't a good idea for translating measure words if its place structure
is in conflict with what we need to say. Fortunately, there is a rather
easy solution: -selylai.

A {mitre} is not a {klani}, but a {se klani}. A {klani} is not a {mitre}, but
a {se mitre}. There's nothing pedantic about having the lujvo and tanru based
on the word {klani} reflecting this.  {kabryselklani}, I propose.

*******************************************************************************
 A freshman once observed to me:         Nick Nicholas am I, of Melbourne, Oz.
 On the edge of the Rubicon,             nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo)
 men don't go fishing.                   CogSci and CompSci & wannabe Linguist.
   - Alice Goodman, _Nixon In China_     Mail me! Mail me! Mail me! Or don't!!