Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 20:03:16 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710110103.UAA07695@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Sender: Lojban list From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Subject: Re: clani X-To: lojban To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Status: RO Content-Length: 1140 Lines: 30 Lee: >Though Jorge wasn't talking about "ni", I think his point is still >good: the abstract property of "length" is "ka mitre", and "length" >of something (a measure) is "ni mitre". The reason I prefer not to talk about ni is that I never fully understood what it's for. I'm confortable using ka, nu and du'u, but I don't know about the other "abstractors", maybe because the first three are the only ones that have been used significantly. Where would one use {ni mitre} for example? Isn't the measure {se mitre}? I know what {le ka mitre li ci} means: The property of measuring three meters. But what does {le ni mitre li ci} mean? >"ni clani", or "amount of >longness" is different. A (subjectively) long thing has "some"; a >subjectively short thing has none. A subjectively very long thing >has a lot. Similarly, a long thing has no amount of shortness, and >a very short thing has a lot of shortness. I agree, but I would say it with ka rather than ni: le clani cu ckaji le ka clani le tordu cu claxu le ka clani le clatce cu mutce le ka clani co'o mi'e xorxes