Message-Id: <m0sBqNG-0009acC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Wed, 17 May 1995 17:05:39 -0400
Reply-To:     "Dylan P. Thurston" <DPT@HUMA1.BITNET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         "Dylan P. Thurston" <DPT@HUMA1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Quantifiers (was Re: A modest proposal #2: verdicality)
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  <01HQLW75OQQGBHEOPK@NETOP6.HARVARD.EDU>
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la xorxes. cusku di'e
> In general, {LE <sumti> <selbri>} means the same as {le <selbri> pe <sumti>},
> which in turn can also be written as {LE pe <sumti> <selbri>}

.i.uasai.o'anaise'i pu sidbo mu'a fa le si'o na'i lu le ri panzi li'u
joi lu le panzi be fe ri li'u selsmu dunli simxu

("Oh! Oh! Oops.  I thought, erroneously and for instance, that {le ri
panzi} meant the same as {le panzi be [fe] ri}."  Could I use {sinxa}
instead of {selsmu}?  Is there a way to mark the {fe} as optional?
Perhaps {.einai} or {sei zifre}?)

la xorxes. pu cusku di'e
 > > I thought {le} was the form for converting a selbri to a sumti--what's
 > > it doing twice here?
 >
 > It does have some uses. This construction permits things like {le re da},
 > for "the two things", very different from {re da}, "two things".

I wasn't asking about usefulness, but that is a good example that
hadn't occurred to me.  {le re da} == {le broda voi remei} == {le te
remei}, right?  ({le remei} would be a mass, {le se remei} would be a
set; {le te remei} gives the same thing as {le re da}, the
individuated set (anybody have a better term?)  But I doubt anybody's
going to remember THAT distinction in practice.)

Hmm.

 > > {le ci ninmu} is almost as bad.
 >
 > This one is extremely useful. It is the simplest way to say how many
 > things you are refering to.

But it's not necessary, yes?  Wouldn't {le te cimei ninmu} do almost
as well?  (Or, in practice, {le cimei ninmu}--a {ninmu} can't be a
mass or a set, so this isn't really ambiguous.)

 > > When I first saw it, I thought {ci
 > > ninmu} was a unit--but no, this is really indecomposable.  Consider:
 > > to say "there are three men in the room" I can say
 > >
 > > .i lo ci nanmu ne'i le kumfa
 >
 > I suppose you mean:
 >
 > (1)     i lo ci nanmu cu nenri le kumfa

My misunderstanding of the grammar led me to make a mistake; I meant
        .i lo ci nanmu pe ne'i le kumfa
which _does_ mean "there are three men in the room", right?

 > ...
 > > as a sumti by itself; but to make a bridi, I need to rewrite this, in
 > > one of the following ways:
 > >       le ni loi nanmu ne'i le kumfa du li ci
 >
 > That's a sumti: The amount of some men being equal to three
 > inside the room.

Sorry, forgot a {cu}: should be
        le ni rolo nanmu pe ne'i le kumfa cu du li ci

 > > or
 > >       loi nanmu ne'i le kumfa cu cimei
 >
 > That makes more sense: Some men are a threesome inside the room.
 >
 > (But other men may be doing something else there.)

Does {piro loi nanmu ne'i le kumfa cu cimei} take care of this case?

 > > or maybe
 > >       da noi te cimei nanmu ne'i le kumfa
 >
 > That's not a bridi. It's one sumti: Something which is a set-of-three
 > type of man inside the room.

Damn those {cu}s!  I meant {da noi te cimei cu nanmu ne'i le kumfa}

 > > Umm.  I'm not sure which of these mean what I want.  In any case, my
 > > point is that there's this syntax for implicitly making a claim about
 > > the number of ways to fill in variables to make a sumti true, without
 > > any corresponding syntax for filling in the places of a bridi.  Why
 > > can't
 > >       ci nanmu ne'i le kumfa
 > > mean "There are men in the room (three of them)" or some such?
 >
 > I remember asking this very same question to John Cowan once, since
 > the sumti {ci nanmu} can already be said {ci lo nanmu}, why not let
 > {ci nanmu} be a selbri meaning "x1 is three men"? The answer is that
 > for historical reasons it is what it is.

Oh well.  I guess I'll have to live with it.

 > >
 > > I've been studying the syntax of sumti.  It is, to put it mildly, a
 > > mess.
 >
 > Well, it has its things, but I wouldn't say it's a mess...
 > You're being more of an iconoclast than I ever was!   :)

I'm honored to be in such company :-).

It does make more sense with my new understanding {pe do}.

 > > Did you know {le mi do se cusku} is ungrammatical?
 >
 > Yes. Whatever would you want it to mean?

Well, I thought it meant {le se cusku pe fe mi zi'e pe fi do} -- "that
which I expressed to you".  But why can't it mean {le se cusku pe mi
zi'e pe do}?

(There's got to be a technical reason the {zi'e} is necessary, yes?  I
know {le se cusku pe mi pe do} is grammatical with a different
meaning, but {le se cusku pe mi ge'u pe do} is not grammatical.)

 > >  > BTW, strangely enough, {le pe fi le xunre ku plini} is grammatical, but
 > >  > with {be} instead of {pe} it isn't.
 > >
 > > What on earth is {le pe fi le xunre ku plini} supposed to mean?
 >
 > Pretty much what you meant by *{le fi le xunre ku plini}.

OK, I see that now.  This does seem to have a few weird consequences,
viz. {da pe fi de} is grammatical but with little meaning.  But I'm
not going to complain, since (a) I'm sure you've heard it all before
and (b) it does have a meaning, just not one you'd ever care to
express.  (I could imagine using {fo'a pe fi da} if {fo'a} had a
suitable reference and I wanted to be obscure.)

 > > mu'o mi'e. dilyn.
 >
 > co'o mi'e xorxes

mu'o mi'e. dilyn.