Message-Id: <199411160657.AA10819@nfs2.digex.net>
From: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU
Date: Wed Nov 16 01:57:58 1994
Subject:      size of breeds
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Wed Nov 16 01:57:58 1994
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu

The `sumti' paper says:

    7.7)    [su'o] lo ci gerku cu blabi
            [some-of] those-which-really-are three dogs are-white

    are semantically anomalous ....

    (Actually, because "gerku" has an x2 place, namely the breed or
    variety of dog, it claims that there are three dogs of the breed
    which is understood from context.  This is almost as bad, because
    no breed of dog has as few as three members.)

Old fashioned cross breeding can create a breed consisting of just
three dogs.  One lamb was the first of the breed of short legged sheep
that could not jump fences that early New Englanders favored.  The
lamb was what breeders in Darwin's time called a `sport', what we now
call a mutant.

The lamb survived and reproduced, so you might say that the breed,
over time, had more than three members.  However, some years ago, at a
genetics lab, I saw a breed of mice with just one member.  As far as I
know, that breed was not worth continuing and did not survive beyond
its first and only member.

(Perhaps I should add that I think the sumti paper is terrific, except
for presuming that the universe always be large.)

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road     bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725