Message-Id: <199412160054.AA23772@nfs1.digex.net>
Date:         Thu, 15 Dec 1994 14:41:44 EST
Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: plural
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@access.digex.net>
Status: RO

la lojbab cusku di'e

> The baseball team of 9 men scored a run.
> lei so prenu [scored a run].
>
> But only one person crossed home plate,

Ok, then:
        pa le so prenu [crossed home plate].


> and at most 4 players were involved in
> getting that person to score the run (barring oddities like sacrifice flies
> and the like). So piro would be VERY misleading at the least.

So it is false that the whole team scored a run?

I am not very familiar with baseball, but if it was football
(assoc., that is :) then it makes a lot of sense to say that the whole
team scored a goal.

> Likewise
> ci cinta preja prenu cu klama le mi zdani
> .i lei ci prenu cu cinta preja zukte fi lenu lemi zdani cu cinta se gacri
>
> Ah, but unbeknownst to me, only 1 person did the painting while the other 2
> held the ladder.  piro lei prenu did not spread paint. pisu'o lei prenu did.

But isn't holding the ladder part of the act? If not, why do you want to refer
to them as a mass? If you still want to do it, you can say {pisu'o lei
prenu ...}. I just think that {piro} is the best as default, not that it should
be used always.

> When you drink "lei" water, your in-mind mass is NOT that portion of the
> molecules that you acytually consimed, but the contents of the glass.

I totally agree. You are not drinking the molecules, you are drinking a
mass of water.

> The fact that we know from physics that a few molecules evaporated and did not
> enter my gullet does not change what the in-mind mass is.

I agree. Molecules of water have nothing to do with this.

> You are trying
> to define the in-mind mass as simply that which makes it true if the
 quantifier
> is piro - a most circular  definition in my estimation.

No, I am not excluding the evaporated molecules. I am saying that the mass of
water as a whole has the property that I drink it, the complete mass. None
of the molecules has the property that I drink it, because single molecules
are not drunk, liquids are. (And it is unnecessary to say {lei djacu}, since
{le djacu} is already an in-mind quantity of water.)

Jorge