Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 16:58:26 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710162158.QAA18552@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Lee Daniel Crocker Sender: Lojban list From: "Lee Daniel Crocker (none)" Organization: Piclab (http://www.piclab.com/) Subject: Re: ka/ni kama X-To: Lojban Group To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199710160115.SAA06465@red.colossus.net> from "JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS" at Oct 15, 97 10:12:50 pm X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2210 Lines: 51 > [much about the use of {kanli} and {merli}, which makes > sense, elided for brevity] > >> And then you must disagree with things like: > >> le ni la djan cu ricfu cu du li piso'i > >> The extent to which John is rich is a lot. > >they are not very useful as quantifiers. > > Why not? Since no terbri asks for a dimensioned number, > where would you use them? As pure numbers they work > well: > ta mitre li rau > That is long enough. If all brivla were designed as you say, where quantities always had separate places for number and scale, then {li rau} et al. would indeed be useful as pure numbers, and pure numbers would be useful as general quantifiers with the scale simply elided. > > How do you answer {ma junta}? > > That's a good question! I wonder why there is such a word > for weight but not for things like length, size, age, etc. If quantities are as you say (and that's a good way for them to be), then {junta} is wrong. > >The abstract properties like "weight" and "luminosity" and "length" > >must be expressible without reference to specific heavy, bright, or long > >things, because the mind can think of them that way. > > The mind sure can be kidded into thinking of them. But you haven't > convinced me yet that there's something you can't say in Lojban > because of the lack of dimensioned numbers. Not wanting to get into the philosophical argument of whether or not qualia are meaningful existents, I /can/ ask what are "pure" numbers if not qualia? If /these/ qualia are basic to the language, why can't I express others? And that brings to mind the obvious place one might want dimensioned quantities: in mekso. If one can say that 2+2=4 without implying that 4 of something are around somewhere, why can I not say that a newton is a kg*m/sec^2 without implying that any pushing is going on? -- Lee Daniel Crocker "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC