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From: "Evgeni Sklyanin" <eks2@york.ac.uk>
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Subject: Re: traji
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coi xorxes. .i do cusku di'e

> 
> I entered this definition for {traji} in jbovlaste:
> 
> x1 zmadu fa'u mleca ro cmima be x4 be'o poi na du x1 
> ku'o x2 do'e x3 noi ka zmadu fa'u mleca
> 
> I have two questions, one technical and one political.
> 
> The technical question: Is the definition (mainly the 
> use of fa'u and do'e) understandable?
>
My translation:
 
x1 exceeds or is inferior to [is it a good antonim to "exceed"?] 
every member of x4 except x1 in property x2 whereas x3 is the 
property of exceeding or being exceeded

I cannot understand from this frase the difference between x2 and x3.
The argument x3 is in my understanding something like 
direction/orientation, e.g. x1 is the northernmost among x4: x2={le 
ni darno}, x3={le nu berti}. May be {farna} can express the meaning 
of x3? 

> The political question: Do we really want to conflate 
> "most" and "least" into the same word, especially given
> that in actual use and in all compounds it is always 
> "most"? Is there any advantage at all in having 
> {traji be fi lo ka zmadu} and {traji be fi lo ka mleca}
> instead of {traji} and {tolrai}?
> 
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
> 
To me {traji} is the exact analog of Russian adjective "samyi" (the 
nearest English analog is the suffix "-est") which does not contain 
the idea of being big or small:
    e.g.  "bolshoi"=big, samyi bolshoi" = the bigg-est
    e.g.  "malenkii"=small, "samyi malenkii"=the small-est

Respectively, I think of {zmadu} as "exceed", not necessarily bigger.
For example, from my point of view the frase
   "x1 zmadu x2 le ka cmalu" is identical to "x1 mleca x2"

I think, you don't need {zmadu fa'u mleca} in the definition, just 
{zmadu} would be enough. My variant:

ko'a zmadu ja dunli ro cmima be ko'o be'o poi na du ko'a 
ku'o ko'e do'e ko'i noi zmadu farna

co'o mi'e .evgenis.