From @gate.demon.co.uk,@uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Wed Jun 21 23:26:48 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3506 ; Wed, 21 Jun 95 23:26:46 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Wed, 21 Jun 95 07:47:19 GMT Received: from gate.demon.co.uk by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa19460; 21 Jun 95 8:46 +0100 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by gate.demon.co.uk id aa22842; 21 Jun 95 8:46 GMT-60:00 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3757; Wed, 21 Jun 95 03:44:33 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3424; Wed, 21 Jun 1995 03:44:33 -0400 Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 03:44:24 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: mass again X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506210846.aa22842@gate.demon.co.uk> Status: R >From: Cyril Slobin >Subject: mass again > >> > For things like "my books weigh several >> > tons" it might be better to say {le girzu be le cukta be mi}. Not >> > that {lei/loi} is necessarily inappropriate (though they may be) but >> > rather that other locutions might better serve your purpose. >> >> Why? I don't see what they could be used for, if not precisely >> for that. > >Weither "(the mass of) human being weigh near 80 kg" or "... near >400,000,000 tons"? IMHO first version is closer to Reference Grammar >examples. Or not? lo junta be loi remna cu ki'ogra li xa .a li vonono,ki'o,ki'o .a li tu'o A weight of the mass of humanity is in kilograms "6" or "400,000,000" or "almost any number you choose". because the default for "loi remna" is that it is the contextually appropropriate non-0 portion of the mass (i.e. pisu'o), and there is no context to constrain how much of the mass is being discussed. lo junta be piro loi remna cu ki'ogra li so'a A weight of all of the mass of humanity is in kilograms a (specific) very large number. which would be calculable if one could put all of humanity on a scale at one time (or sum the values of the weights on 6 billion-odd mutually calibrated scales all at one time). It is plausible that in some cases, the phrase "mass of humanity" has an implied quantifier of "all". But then there is the metaphorical use: "the mass of humanity is on the side of peace" which brings to mind a balance with a large mass of people standing on one side of a scale, but a small but non-0 portion of humanity in favor of some particular war standing on the other side. The "mass of humanity" in this image is that of the plurality of humanity that happens to care about the particular issue, and thus it weighs considerably less than the weight of 6 billion humans, though likely far more than 80 kg). Since the English has confusing polysemy in this example, I want to clarify for all readers of this message that Lojban "mass" = "loi" has nothing to do with mass "ni marji". The latter is measureable in kilograms and/or moles. The former is difficult to measure, or even to conceive of as measureable. (Hmm. "loi ni marji" ought to be worth a good multilingual pun, or even "loi ni gunma" %^) "ni gunma" itself is a challenging concept - is this And's porridgity?) lojbab