Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:32:39 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712101432.JAA02215@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: semisummary: countability X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2549 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 10 09:32:41 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Jorge: > >> 1) If {[piro] lei re valsi cu valsi} is true, then is {[piro] lei re > valsi} > >> a member of {lo'i valsi}? > >> > >> 2) If two words are wordage, is half a word wordage too? > >> i xu zoi gy thr gy cu valsi bau le glico > > > > My answer to (2) would be No: wordage > >contains at least one word, because half a word lacks the > >requisite properties (like having a sense and a selma`o). > > If those are requisites, then {lu mi klama li'u} is not wordage, > because it has no selmaho. Also {lo'u mi pi ku klama ka cu le'u} > is not wordage because it has neither sense nor selmaho. {pi su`o lu mi klama li'u} and {pi su`o lo'u mi pi ku klama ka cu le'u} have sense and selmaho. {pi su`o zo sp} doesn't. I also think that {pi su`o zoi x. she has sp x.} is wordage, but not {pi ro zoi x. she has sp x.}. But it is notoriously hard to reason about these things. > >As for (1), I don't know. If you changed the example to pertain > >to {xekri} or {djacu}, the answer would be Yes. But I can't think > >of a principled reason for deciding it in the case of {valsi}, > >{mlatu}, etc. > > I would want {ro da poi valsi cu cmima lo'i valsi} to be true. > "Every x that is a word is a member of a set of words." If you applied that to {djacu}, it would make {lo`i djacu} infinite, even though there is only a finite amount of water. Is that desirable? (Mind you, I think it's inevitable.) I think I might prefer: {ro da poi ke`a me/du pa valsi cu cmima lo`i valsi}. > >I'm not so much seeking some kind of collective agreement on the > >answers to these questions as much as some kind of collective > >agreement on what the internally-coherent options are. > > I agree. My feeling is that the {lei ci valsi cu valsi} option is not > consistent. For example, could I say: > > i mi tcidu lu ta plise li'u e zo ta e zo plise ti > "I read {ta plise} and {ta} and {plise} here." > > i seni'ibo mi tcidu ci plise [> valsi] ti > "Therefore, I read exactly three words here." No. At least not according to either of the options I defined. > If I can't say that, then how do you logically expand > {ci plise [> valsi]} in a way that {lu ta plise li'u} is not a > valid instantiation? On the "wordage option", counted things are single-words. So "ci valsi" is 3 single words. Anyway, I'm coming to think that the "single-word option", where {pi ro lei ci valsi cu valsi} is false (even though {pi ro lei ci djacu cu djacu} is true) is probably a bit more straightforward. --And