Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: my first translation

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Friday 10 August 2012 16:20:18 ianek wrote:
> {lai}, {loi}, {lei} are not plural. A mass can be equally well
> composed of one component. That said, I don't quite get what masses
> are in Lojban, eg. why {lo matne} can't be a mass:
> http://dag.github.com/cll/6/3/ Whether or not a mass is correct in the
> context of Borg, plurality is not implied.

If there is one stick of butter somewhere, it is equally correct to call 
it "lo matne" and "loi matne". If there are two or more sticks of butter, 
there is a semantic difference between "lo matne" and "loi matne", which is a 
bit hard to explain without some predicate. Butters don't carry pianos, or 
take any action, and they are subdivisible.

Here's my example of "lo/loi" being the opposite of singular/plural:
lo mi kerfa cu jdari .iku'i loi mi kerfa cu ranti
My hairs are hard, but my hair is soft.

Pierre
-- 
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci

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