From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Dec 18 02:32:00 1995 Reply-To: Chris Bogart Date: Mon Dec 18 02:32:00 1995 Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: Disjunctive compounds (was: left factoring) X-To: lojban@cuvmb.bitnet To: John Cowan Status: OR Message-ID: <2A6epG8brwF.A.dwF.pu0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> >la xorxes. cusku di'e > >> {lei brife ja canre} logically seems to work, too, but I don't find it >> very appealing. Maybe it's just that we are not used to such things >> in natlangs. > >Depends on which natlangs. Ivan says in his paper on noun compounds: > ># There don't seem to be many languages which have disjunctive noun-noun ># compounds, in which the set of instances of the complex concept is the ># union of the sets of instances of the components, as in That seems to me like a slightly different thing, although {le} might let you get away with it. Japanese has a conjunction "ya" which explicitly does this: "enpitsu ya pen" means "pencils, pens, and the like". I don't think we have the equivalent in Lojban, since {ja} doesn't add "and the like". ____ Chris Bogart \ / http://www.quetzal.com Boulder, CO \/ cbogart@quetzal.com "Life is strange. Some people get rich, others eat shit and die. Maybe a fat man will feel his heart burst and call it beautiful." - Hunter S Thompson