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Re: countability (was: RE: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e



In a message dated 11/1/2001 1:25:27 PM Central Standard Time, jcowan@reutershealth.com writes:


This, BTW, is why Chinese philosophy very early had the insight
"White-Horse is not Horse".  In a language with count nouns, this gets
mistranslated "A white horse is not a horse", which is false; but
when applied to masses, it is perfectly correct.


Well, you can get a small war on this one.  As the argument is developed in Kung-sun Lung and the Mohists, it does not seem to fit that pattern but another one, roughly about the correct interpretation of a two word string (? bao ma? blanu xirma), which is indistingusihable in the Chinese of the time (at least) from a conjoint _expression_ (xirma bakni in the early days of Pretty Little Girls School, now xirma je bakni).  Others tell other tales -- including the mass noun one, which makes sense but doees not fit the actual arguments well -- so this is not definitive. Always good  for a row at Chinese Philosophy meeting though.