Message-Id: <199512261612.SAA08818@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 26 Dec 1995 08:07:19 -0800
Reply-To: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Subject:      tech:masses
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1327
Lines: 24

Mr. Rabbit treats not only all rabbits separately but all rabbits
collectively as a single individual, in the sense that whatever is true
of  a rabbit or a group of rabbits collectively (maybe with some
restrictions, e.g., about weight, say) is true of Mr. Rabbit.  Now, if
that is what xorexes meant by _lo'e_ and he also meant the x2
place of <hunt> to be transparent, it still doesn't fly -- certainly not
for unicorn hunting and no even for deer or lions, unless the hunt is
successful.

The "piecee" construction, "a scoop of..." is the mass-to-count
converter, though it does not always (often? ever?) give back the
units that were massified in porridgification.

The point about mass/count being in VP rather than NP in English is a
misremembering of a conflation of two articles (at least one misread) on
two other topics.  But it makes so much sense to me that I may pursue it;
it can't fare worse than the present situation on this topic, where there
are half-a-dozen views that end up not even agreeing on what counts as a
case to be explained.  In any case, there does not seem to be any
necessity of Lojban having mass expressions in any of the senses floating
around in discussing English, although there are some inferences which we
need to explore a bit more (see McCawley on mass nouns for a summary).

pc>|83