From ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK Sat Mar 6 22:44:50 2010 Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 23:56:36 +0100 From: ucleaar Subject: Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response To: Bob LeChevalier X-From-Space-Date: X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Message-ID: Xorxes: > la djan cusku di'e > > > How does this work? Are {suo do} and {ro do} okay as sumti? > > They are, indeed: "at least one of you" and "all of you" respectively. > > You can precede any sumti whatever with a quantifier. > The problem with {do} is its individual/mass ambivalence. While {ro do} > suggests that {do} refers to one or more individuals, other uses seem > to suggest otherwise. For example, what does {do bevri lo tanxe} mean? > "Each of you carries a box" or "You all together carry a box"? > To be consistent, {do} should always be a mass (because mi'o, ma'a, > etc. are defined as masses, not individuals), and the proper way of saying > "each of you" and "two of you" should be {ro lu'a do} and {re lu'a do}. I think the default should actually be an implicit {loe}, the "myopic singularizer". Since there is no point in using quantifiers with loe, that would leave {re do} unambiguously meaning "two of you". For "the mass of you" (not a terribly useful concept), {luo do}. > (BTW, the {ro}s are not wrong, but confuse the issue, since there is > only one of each set, maybe you meant {lo'i ro glezdi}, which is also > not needed because {ro} is the default.) Ah. {lo broda} is {lo suo broda} and {lohi broda} is {lohi ro broda}? > You could have said: [...] {naku roda glezdi gi'o nungle}. That's what I meant. > > People have learnt {du'u} and {du}. You can't go round messing with > > that. Allowing, say, {duo} as an allomorph of {du'u} would be better. > I wasn't really really serious with that suggestion (only somewhat > really serious), but I doubt that learning an allomorph would be any > easier. It's enough that we have to learn a lot of double rafsi, > I don't really want double cmavo on top of that. The old polysyllabic cmavo would become obsolete & archaic. Only those researching ancient Lojban archives would need to know them. It might well be easier to learn to swap {du} & {duu} (& were it voted on I'd be in favour), but it will never get support from Lojban Central. [Who invented that term? Was it Nick? It reminds me of John Le Carre - Moscow Central, run by Karla.] --- And