From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Tue Mar 21 00:50:48 1995
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Date: Tue Mar 21 00:50:48 1995
Subject:      Re: selbri as sumti
Status: RO
Message-ID: <MdlCkzlV3SC.A.JXG.Nv0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org>

And:
> > > >        mi citka lo finpe poi cmima lo cizra
> > > Still not quite what I want. I want to say that a class that is
> > > pisuho of the class of fish/food/books is strange.
> > Change {lo cizra} to {lo cizra ke finpe klesi pagbu}.
>
>   mi citka lo finpe poi cmima lo cizra gihe pagbu be lo klesi be ro lohi
>   finpe (or lohi ro? - I keep on forgetting)

{lo'i ro}, but that is the default, so you don't really need it.

The {gi'e} doesn't work there the way you want. It says that {lo finpe
cu cmima ije lo finpe cu pagbu}. {lo} doesn't take {gi'e}-connected selbri.

> > I don't think your problem arises in this case for the reason I gave
> > before: there are only existential quantifiers, which commute without
> > any problem.
>
> I wasn't actually concerned with quantifier scope. I was concerned with
> how to talk about something both as a category and as a member of a
> category. The solution seems to be to use predicates like cmima and
> klesi. I guess I was hoping there was a more concise way to do it,
> just as {lo finpe} is more concise than {lo cmima be lo klesi be ro lohi
> finpe}.

I guess I don't see it then. If you interpret "I eat a strange kind of
fish" as "I eat a member of a strange category of fish" then you can say
{mi citka lu'a lo cizra klesi be lo'i finpe}, hardly more complex than the
English expression. The problem comes with "I eat every kind of fish",
because of the scope.


> > >    ca le cabdei mi baho gasnu luha lo roldei gihe klesi be
> > >       ro lohi selzukte be mi
>
> Why isn't it [lo {[roldei] gihe [klesi be ro lohi selzukte be mi]}]?

Because it's:

  mi [ba'o gasnu lu'a lo roldei] gi'e [klesi be ro lo'i selzukte be mi]

I'm nor sure that your suggestion would be any more useful.

> > Besides, you didn't restrict it to the activities that you do today.
> > You are saying that today you did all your quotidian activities,
> > including those that don't happen today.
>
> I was thinking {luha} is "some members of" rather than "all members of".

You're right.

> I think that how to specify the x2 of krefu using a {lo} gadri is
> the kind of thing I've already been asking about: it wd seem to refer
> to a category rather than an individual.

I think the x2 is just the first of the series, not the archetype,
whatever that is. (Or if it was, we could use {lo'e}, maybe.)

Jorge