Re: [jboske] One more try

[Nick Nicholas <opoudjis@optushome.com.au>]

OK, Jorge, you're better at logic than me, I freely admit, so you take 
over.

I am clumsily attempting to demonstrate that collective != piroloi

More generally, I am trying to derive collective (and later on, 
substance) from lojbanmass, because in Standard Lojban, lojbanmass is 
the primitive.

If this is hopeless, and it is agreed that collective is a separate 
primitive, then ipso facto, gadri. Because we've all been saying 
collectives are a subset of lojbanmass, I think it not hopeless.

> I don't think this last bit is true in general. The collective says
> that the bridi is true of the whole bunch. It doesn't say anything
> about whether it is true of the members of the bunch.

This is where I keep going wrong. If it true of the whole bunch and can 
be true of individuals within the bunch ("the duet sings... actually 
right now it's just Fred"), then do we have classic lojbanmass, and 
joi? And if it's true of the whole bunch and no individuals within it 
("together", classic sense of piano carrying), we have one kind of 
collective and one kind of lojbanmass, right?

So I'm trying to say that, in all 3 scenarios, loi prenrbriticybuldogo 
do it, but by playing with the quantification, we can extract an 
individual, a collective, and eventually a substance intepretation.

And I leave with my other Christmas Mass idea:

ro pa lu'a piro loi broda = collective?
ro za'u lu'a piro loi broda = individual?

As in, take the entire Lojbanmass, convert it into an individual, and 
if a single individual containing the Lojbanmass does it, you have a 
collective; but if you don't, and have to extract several individuals 
out of it, you have an individual plural?

But what about the two groups of three... aaaargh...

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Nick Nicholas; University of Melbourne, http://www.opoudjis.net
nickn@unimelb.edu.au Dept. of French & Italian Studies
No saves, Antonyo, lo ka es morirse una lingua. Es komo kedarse soliko
en el silensyo kada diya ke el Dyo da --- Marcel Cohen, 1985 (Judezmo)