From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:45:55 2010 Reply-To: "John E. Clifford" Sender: Lojban list Date: Sat Dec 16 20:14:16 1995 From: "John E. Clifford" Subject: masses To: lojban list Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Sat Dec 16 20:14:16 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: x: I'm not sure what's a typical lion of the intentional world, but I think that {lo'e cinfo} is not {lo fadni be le ka cinfo} = "a typical holder of the property of being a lion". {lo'e cinfo} is really a place filler that avoids having to instantiate with a value from the real world. pc: I'm not sure what it would be -- different in different worlds, I suppose. I'm not sure about "typical" either, but it is surely nearer that than an empty placeholder, indeed, more than "any-old lion will do," as is usually the case of lion hunting. The fulfillment set (intentional but hopefully overlapping the real, since each real lion will satisfy the hunter, but no one preselected). x: Notice that this requires that {loi mlatu} be not the mass of all cats, but rather a mass of some cats, or equivalently some mass of cats. Also, none of these use the equivalent to the English "of cat", so that we don't have to use in Lojban a sumti equivalent to that "cat". pc: I agree on _loi_ (reluctantly, but the objections are always coming from one of the other _loi_ stories). But, as you note, none of your translations get the English, the massy cat beyond (or bundled in) the various cats. I suspect that Lojban may need either a lujvo, "cat-stuff" and so on, or the verbal sense gets worked out correctly and we have a simple VP taking (I think) _loi_ in the relevant sumti places: the collective of cats homogenize into to something that weighs so and so, divides naturally into twelve units, spreads out over an acre. But, as you point out, most of these do not need the homogenizing part. Which is why I think that the collective version is central and the others are derived in ways not yet fully worked out. pc>|83