From lojbab Sat Mar 6 22:46:48 2010 From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Numbers Date: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 10:09:22 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) In-Reply-To: <199503100130.AA28961@nfs1.digex.net> from "jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU" at Mar 9, 95 02:38:56 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24beta] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1752 Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Fri Mar 10 10:09:34 1995 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab Message-ID: <0y_tur7cXlD.A.ViG.Yv0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> la xorxes. cusku di'e > 3- My interpretation of {ji'i} allows to say everything that you can > say with the one proposed in the grammar paper, and more. > With my interpretation ji'i means a number > between those two, or approximately that. So 20ji'i30 would > be a number between 20 and 30, but could eventually be 19 or 31, > it is approximate, and the difference between the numbers gives > an idea of the uncertainty. > > With the interpretation of the paper, 20ji'i30 would be a number > between 2010 and 2099, or something like that. More precisely (but not necessarily more accurately), it expresses a random variable whose range is 2000-2099 and whose measure of central tendency (exactly which measure is unspecified) is 2030. > To say that with > my interpretation, I would say 2050ji'i or ji'i2050. The > uncertainty is given by the last significant (non-zero) digit. But the idea of inserting "ji'i" is precisely to get rid of the ambiguity (mabla) between significant and non-significant zeros. What is the meaning of ji'i2000 in your scheme? 2000-2009, 2000-2099, or 2000-2999? There's no way to know. But with the existing scheme, these three ranges can be pinned down as 200ji'i0, 20ji'i00, and 2ji'i000. Furthermore, if the central-tendency measure is in fact useful, you can give that as well by saying (e.g.) 200ji'i3, 20j'i44, or 2ji'i123. > {ji'i} would only say that the total number is not exact, not > a particular digit. (The ji'i+ and ji'i- convention for rounding > could still be kept.) But the use of inserted ji'i makes so much more flexibility possible. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.