[lojban-beginners] Re: Mass

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 5:16 PM, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
> ki'e
>
> As for the quantifiers, according to the article, "all the students
> gathered in the hallway" is ok but "each student gathered in the
> hallway" is not.

Right, each student can't gather by him or herself.

> In Lojban, both "all" and "each" are expressed with "ro".

"All" is ambiguous in English as to ditributivity:

  All the students gathered in the hall. (collective "all")
  All the students are female. (distributive "all" -> Each student is female.)

> Does this mean that the discernment made in the article does not
> apply to Lojban?

Outer quantifier "ro" is always distributive. For the collective use
of "all" you need to use "ro" as an inner quantifier:

  lo(i) ro tadni cu jmaji lo balku'a
  All the students gather in the hall.

  ro lo tadni cu femti
  Each of the students is female.
  All the students are female.

mu'o mi'e xorxes