From @gate.demon.co.uk,@uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Fri Jun 09 22:05:19 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3330 ; Fri, 09 Jun 95 22:05:17 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Thu, 08 Jun 95 04:52:41 GMT Received: from gate.demon.co.uk by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa12825; 8 Jun 95 5:52 +0100 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by gate.demon.co.uk id ac28423; 7 Jun 95 21:03 GMT-60:00 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0276; Wed, 07 Jun 95 15:54:46 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 7770; Wed, 7 Jun 1995 14:15:54 -0400 Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 13:59:53 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: masses - response to Jorge X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506072104.ac28423@gate.demon.co.uk> Status: R Jorge: >Subject: Re: masses - response to Jorge >la lojbab cusku di'e >> Example: You are approaching a corner, and you see as you approach, >> sticking from behind the corner, a man's ear and a woman's nose, but no >> other identifiable part of their bodies. You also can hear from their >> conversation that there is a child present. In this case, then, you can >> say that "mi viska re lu'a le nanmu ku joi le ninmu ku joi le verba" and >> mean precisely that you see the man's ear and the woman's nose, since in >> fact that is what you actually DO see. From the components (I like >> "portions" better in some contexts, like this one), you infer properties >> of the whole. To you the observer, the ear IS the man and the nose IS >> the woman. > >I agree with that, you are seeing two of them, the man and the woman. >If you only see the man's ear and the man's leg, but nothing of the >woman or the child, then you are seeing one of them, not two of them. >You'd say {mi viska pa lu'a le nanmu ku joi le ninmu ku joi le verba}, >so your example agrees with what I'm saying. I don't agree. In English, let us say one person asks "I am looking for a man, a woman and a child. Can you see them?" If you can see only the man's ear and leg, but have other evidence (e.g. voices) that tell you that the others are present, you might indeed be considered to answer truthfully if you say "Yes, I see them." We're getting to the nitty-gritty about masses here, in that the components must display the relevant properties of the mass (whatever they are, which may be situationally dependent) in order to "be" the mass. For example "loi djacu cu cilmo" implies as a component a mass of water which is significantly larger than an individual molecule, and in liquid form. lojbab