Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 12:04:42 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712051704.MAA22841@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: semisummary: countability X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1009 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 5 12:04:43 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Certain selbri's senses include delimitation criteria, while others' don't. For example, there is no way to decide if {su`o re da water ije su`o ci da na water} (djaco? - something like that) is true, because there are no criteria for deciding what counts as a single amount of water. But in contrast, the sense of {valsi} does specify what counts as a single word, so the truth of {su`o re da valsi ije su`o ci da na valsi} is decidable. However, does {valsi} mean (a) "is a single word", or does it mean (b) "is wordage"? A test case is whether {pi ro loi ci lo valsi cu valsi} or {pi ro lei ci valsi cu valsi} makes sense. If it does, then (b) would be right, and if it doesn't, (a) would be right. Both (a) and (b) seem on the face of things to make sense. Under (a), {re da cu valsi} it would mean "Each of two things is a single word". Under (b) it would mean "Each of two things is wordage, and the two things are differentiated from other individuals by virtue of each being a single word". --And