Message-Id: <m0rF7be-00007GC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 6 Dec 1994 16:29:51 EST
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Subject: Re: TEXT: pemci
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 2965
Lines: 66

la lojbab cusku di'e

> >        le ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno
> >        Each of the three men carries the piano
> >
> >        lei ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno
> >        The three men carry the piano
> >
> Both of your first two examples ARE plurals.

If you want to call them that. Notice that the verb is in the sigular
in the first case.

> One of them CAN expand into
> 3 (a plural number) separate singuklar sentences.

That's right, it's a plural number of sentences, but for each sentence,
the number of men is one. If you like to call this plural, no problem,
but the claim is not about a plural entity.

> But until you expand it,
> it is just as plural as the second one.  The English "The three men
> carry the piano" could mean EITHER of these two interpretations, with
> pragmatics being the deciding factor.

I agree, that's why I said that the way Lojban distinguishes the plural
is different from how it's done in English. In English, the plural usually
denotes a plural entity (that would be the natural way I would interpret
that sentence, not that each carried it by himself) but sometimes it is
used to indicate multiple instances of singular entities, which sometimes
may cause confusion.

> "The three men carry the log across
> the field more clearly indicates this ambiguity - it could either be "le"
> or "lei", and indeed could be piro lei or pisu'o lei.

It would normally be {lei}, since it would be strange to say that in English
for three events of carrying the log, unless you add something like
"one time each".

This still doesn't contradict that {le} makes claims about single entities
and {lei} about plural ones. (Yes, I know that you can say {lei pa broda}
but to me it is not very sensible to do so.)

> But the important thing about neutrality on this shows up in cases where
> English doesn't make a singular/plural distinction - that is when English
> uses masses.  Replace "nanmu" by "djacu" in the above exampoles and you
> see where English breaks down (assume that the piano floats %^).  Lojban
> does not require that you decide that the carrier be one water or three
 waters,
> which is good because my English mind has to stretch to picture three
> waters carrying a piano, especially with the "lei" version.

But {le ci djacu} is "each of three quantities of water". If you use that
you are making a claim about three separate events. {lei ci djacu} would take
the three quantities of water as a single entity, perhps three rivers that
take the piano from one place to another in succesion. If you see this as
one event, then the three waters took the log from A to B. It would be false
to say that each of the waters took it from A to B.

In this case, if you don't give the number {le djacu} and {lei djacu} are
equally good, because a mass of many quantities of water is still a
quantity of water. (Funnily enough, even in English you can say "the water
carried the log" or "the waters carried the log".)

Jorge