Re: [jboske] individuation and masses (was: RE: mass, group, MrThing(was: RE: loi'e = loi ?

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

And Rosta scripsit:

> If lo birje is a beer but not some beer, then the Lojban distinction
> between lo birja and loi birja (or whatever the substance gadri is
> if not beer) is not vacuous. It isn't vacuous for lo prenu and loi
> prenu, and it would be nice if Lojban did what it claimed to do
> and didn't make a distinction between mass nouns and count nouns,
> so that lo gives a count interpretation and loi gives a mass
> (substance) interpretation.

+1, with the caveat that "lo birje" has a wider range of referents than
"a beer"; it also covers things like "a bottle of beer" and "a keg of
beer" and "a vat of beer". Similarly, "lo rismi" can be "a grain of rice"
or "a serving of rice" or "a pot of rice".

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