From lojban+bncCJ2UzZHuDRDEm5DfBBoEw6A1bg@googlegroups.com Fri May 07 05:55:56 2010 Received: from mail-qy0-f149.google.com ([209.85.221.149]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1OAN5o-0006Wm-5f; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:56 -0700 Received: by qyk13 with SMTP id 13sf547535qyk.1 for ; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:41 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:mime-version:received:received :in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :x-original-authentication-results:x-original-sender:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=Dc78PoWUIk9FIMYt9XvoN8PUSJxTifbV+cpi1CyrSzU=; b=Q73KGoWB6dd4Zny6GANWGKKSHYg7rR5uPARMIxEtZ4wThkQmvuku/9Cb436Ir8g+hp bIxVkPIkxNrSBa7omdp/uxOG1jU8FFa+emnkjV3E1TC/d5092DpiCGm8K26tska5YlQr LJittuqtudJLgZIfXnkngx+yQlXJk0FlaNeOk= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-authentication-results :x-original-sender:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list:list-id :list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender:list-subscribe :list-unsubscribe:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=xOPaiWM/Ri5knGPsKhUqM8fYrvcisbdLcuxEZPuxxoHNpgCH4ElUaMmnX6bmpyVjZS HXzatCyLhMKK72QHto4QTW9goiiJXWCWRUTVwdNjlZQaWIrfYA0rGXeoduWhlnvw8BHH znaz/xV+y+O5HH7OtQuMplsC/IHbnD4kCDw/E= Received: by 10.224.18.23 with SMTP id u23mr1193179qaa.26.1273236932467; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:32 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.224.42.12 with SMTP id q12ls4391052qae.0.p; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.87.67 with SMTP id v3mr1352785qal.27.1273236929918; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.87.67 with SMTP id v3mr1352784qal.27.1273236929883; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-vw0-f50.google.com (mail-vw0-f50.google.com [209.85.212.50]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id 24si399879qyk.6.2010.05.07.05.55.28; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:28 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.212.50 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.212.50; Received: by vws10 with SMTP id 10so818927vws.9 for ; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:28 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.97.147 with SMTP id l19mr350193qcn.24.1273236928601; Fri, 07 May 2010 05:55:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.229.82.11 with HTTP; Fri, 7 May 2010 05:55:28 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 09:55:28 -0300 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] Named multiples From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of jjllambias@gmail.com designates 209.85.212.50 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=jjllambias@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com X-Original-Sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Daniel Brockman wrote: > (I especially look forward to hearing xorxes' view on this.) My view on this is that CMEVLA should be merged with BRIVLA. There is really no reason to artificially restrict the syntactic possibilities of CMEVLA. > For example, I drive an Opel, so in Lojban I could say > > =A0 =A0.i mi klama fu lo me la .opel. With ".opel." as a predicate, this would be: mi klama fu lo .opel. > Lojban is ostensibly unmarked for number, but we Lojbanists are > not used to named multiples; we only ever talk about named > singles, like {la .lojban.} or {la .xorxes.}. Right, because we usually do give names only to singles. "Opel" is not really the "name" of your car, at least not any more than your dog's name is "dog". "Opel" is what your car is: lo do karce cu .opel. > Because of this de facto convention, we assume that {la .opel.} > refers to a company or a *type* of car (singles), rather than to the > cars (a multiple). =A0So in practice {la} is not number-agnostic. CLL gives "me la spagetis" as an example of a type-2 fu'ivla. But saying mi citka la spagetis sounds absolutely weird to me, because "spagetis" is not a "name" in the relevant sense. (The only sense in which it is a "name" is that it has cmevla form.) > But there's no ban on named multiples, so {klama fu la .opel.} > should be perfectly okay, since it's obvious from context that in > this case {la .opel.} is a multiple: "the cars named Opel." But the cars are not "named" Opel any more than spaghetti are "named" spaghetti. If all "la" does is "just like 'lo' except that the word that follows ends in a consonant instead of a vowel", then we wouldn't need "la" at all. What "la" says is that we don't care at all about the meaning of the word that folllows, we care only about its form. But when you say that you drive an Opel, the word Opel does have a meaning, just like when you say you eat spaghetti, the word spaghetti does have a meaning. So the problem is not really with "lo me", which does (practically) nothing, but with "la", which takes away the meaning of whatever follows. When cmevla happen to have meaning, as in .opel. or .spagetis., we don't really want to take it away from them. mu'o mi'e xorxes --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den.