[lojban-beginners] Re: FW: quantified number sumti, fences, and meshes

[Alex Martini <alexjm@umich.edu>]

On Jan 18, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Turniansky, Michael wrote:

> Pierre wrote:
> > On Thursday 18 January 2007 10:00, Turniansky, Michael wrote:
> > > But I can't figure out how to say "the 2 2's" For example, saying  
> > > (and
> > > this may be malglico, in which case I apologize in advance) "The 3
> > > sticks measured-in-meters were 2 2's, and a 3" (And yes, I know  
> > > you CAN
> > > circumlocute this in various ways, but I was talking more directly.)
> > > I've tried li re boi re, but that doesn't parse.  Is there a way  
> > > to do
> > > it?
>
> > {le ci grana cu mitre re li re jo'u li ci}. jbofi'e requires  
> > {lo'o} before
> > {jo'u}, for the same reason as {ku joi}.
>
> But this misses my point (which may mean my sentence was a bad  
> example).
> I know that "re li re" is fine, but it means "2 _of the_ 2's".  I want
> to assert that 2 2s are all the 2s there are (equivalent to "le re
> verba").  Obviously, I can't say "li re re", because that would  
> mean the
> 22.

Can you describe in long form what exactly you mean by "2 2's" ? With  
no context
I can't really tell what you want to say.

I thing that you are actually using an English idiom that means "two  
things
that are measured in some way to be 2 units", ie two sticks that are  
both 2-meters
long would be 2 2's, or two pipe fittings that are standard size #2  
or some
such thing.

Although, now that I think on it, things that are just associated  
with the number
two can be called 2's. Like if a teacher makes three versions of an  
exam and
numbers them 1 2 and 3. She can have 2 2's sitting her desk, waiting  
to be
graded.

mu'o mi'e .aleks.