[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: xorxesmass vs lojbanmass (was Re: [jboske] mei, latest cause celebre)


la djorden cusku di'e

> {pisu'o lei ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno} is also true,
> because {pisu'o} can be {piro} in particular, but it
> is not what we want to say in that situation because it
> is misleading. It is like saying "I ate some of the
> cake" when I ate it all. It is true but misleading.

Ok, but "I ate all of the cake" is just as weird unless there was
some question as to how much you would eat. You'd just use an
individual with "I ate the cake".


Yes, meaning {piro le} and not {pisu'o le}.
If instead of a cake, we talk of apples, then {piro lei plise}
and not {pisu'o lei plise}.

> Using
> {pisu'o lei} in those cases, while making a true
> statement, is not what we want to say. That one
> of the men may be a supervisor changes nothing.

Yes it does. The supervisor didn't carry the piano. He just stood
around. So "piro" would be false.


None of the men carried the piano individually, each of them
just contributed to the carrying. The supervisor is not special
in this respect.

> He is one of the team and it is the whole team,
> supervisor included, that does the carrying. We

I disagree. "The team did the carrying"---that means that some
parts of the team did the actual carrying.


The team did the actual carrying. There is no separate "carrying"
and "actual carrying". If you see the three as doing the carrying
then they (the three) do it. If you don't think the supervisor
participatied in the actual carrying then the two did the actual
carrying and talking of the three is misleading. If you want
you could say:

{piro lei ci nanmu cu bevri i ku'i piro lei re nanmu cu fatci bevri}
The three did the carrying, but the two did the actual carrying.

But {pisu'o} does not say "the three did the carrying but maybe
only some fraction did the actual carrying." It just says
"some fraction of the three did the carrying".

If a player on a soccer team is sitting on the bench, he's still
part of the mass of his team.

He is part of a team, yes.

However, if you say "piro lei <soccer
team> won", you'd be saying something false.


{piro lei <soccer team>} is a mass of soccer teams.
You mean {piro lei <player>}. So, you would not
say {le girzu cu jinga}, but {pisu'o le girzu cu jinga}?

Similarly "piro lei
<soccer team> sat-on-the-bench" would be false, but pisu'o would
be true.


{pisu'o lei <player> sat-on-the-bench} would be true.
But do we really use {lei} with that default in actual
use? Do we say {lei players sat-on-the-bench} while
the team was playing? I've never seen that usage.

Note that this is why piro is almost never useful, because it is
effectively individuals except that you get a few of those
mass-properties.


piro is the interesting fraction in most cases. The
emergent properties are properties of piro, not of
some fraction of the whole.

Ok all of the above is just you restating your premise. I see no
real support for this, and the book's story makes much better sense
to me.


Ok, I'll try to keep it in mind that when you use {lei} you
don't mean {piro lei}. I will read again some of your
translations in the light of this and see how consistent
you are about it.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_eliminateviruses_3mf