Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 11:48:15 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710111648.LAA05562@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: Dvorak (& Lojban) X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199710110025.VAA26242@roble.intermedia.com.ar> Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1899 X-From-Space-Date: Sat Oct 11 11:48:24 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS wrote: > cu'u la kris > >I think this apparent paradox isn't because clani is subjective, but > >because le'e dargu le'e rirxe cu frica leni te clani ka'u. > > Why {ni} there? I would say: > > le'e dargu le'e rirxe cu frica le ka ke'a clani fi makau > Roads and rivers differ in respect to what they are long. Yes, that's better. I'm out of practice. But I would think that using ni instead of ka would emphasize that you're talking about a quantitative difference between the lenths of two reference measuring-sticks, rather than just the fact that the two sticks are not identical. > I agree, yes. But what te clani do we use to say that some river is > kilto some road in length? Could be meters, or the length of time required to navigate it, or something else that should be clear in context. Or I suppose you could even use different te clani when making pseudo-mathematical comparison between abstractions: "he's twice as stupid as the world is round". The thing being compared here (some assumed equivalence relation between IQ and variability of curvature) is even more absurd than using inverse meters as a measure of shortness, but both can be imagined. > And why should it matter whether the > river or the road are long or short if we are just comparing their > objective lengths? Longness and objective length are not so unrelated in my mind. One is a quality and one is a measure, but I guess I think of "ni" and "ka" as ways of converting between the two. "ni clani fi le mitre" ought to be about the same as "mitre", and "ka ke'a zu'i zmadu le mitre" should be similar to "clani" (although I think I'm messing up levels of abstraction and place structures...) I agree then when speaking of objective lengths it would be more straightforward to use mitre than some construction involving clani. co'o mi'e kris