| In a message dated 9/11/2002 5:41:15 PM Central Daylight Time, lojbab@lojban.org writes: << xorxes: >Can {pa prenu} ever mean "one people"? I've never seen >> Not a relevant question. "one people" means ein Volk (hopefully without the other clauses) and has "people" as a singular collective or mass noun. In connection with {prenu} , "people" is a plural of "person" (the regular one being specialized -- in my dialect anyhow -- for legalese and related stodginesses: "bonked on the bean by person or persons unknown"). So, while "two people" is usually a good translation of {re prenu}, "one people" is not for {pa prenu} (someone suggested that {pa natmi} would be decent way to say "one people" in Lojban). << I've never seen "pa djacu" used to refer to 1 molecule of water. >> But it wouldn't be wrong, though possibly misleading. A molecule of water is, after all, a quantity (indeed, the minimum quantity) of water, though not made of nor an expanse of nor containing water. (The definition seems to amount to saying "if water is involved, this is your word" -- and that is probably pretty close to right: prenu, or at least their bodies, are djacu) << No one ever uses a lujvo for "United States", one of the only concepts in English with a historical record of switching from plural to singular. >> It didn't really; oppositely from "people," it went from plural to collective -- a more common step. xorxes again << I would never use {pa djacu} for one molecule. That would be {pa selci be lo'e djacu}. {pa djacu} for me is a quantity of water, normally in its liquid state. >> I think the first bit is probably good style, but the last overly confines the notion -- ice and steam are both djacu, as are animals and plants and a fairly large precentage of rocks. << if there is no hint yet to suggest that {pa prenu} can mean "one people", why would we say so? >> xorxes aside, who has even suggested that it did, let alone actually said it? << for me a single molecule is not made of water, it is made of atoms. There have to be millions of molecules for there to be water. It may be that in some very specific context it could stand for one molecule, but it is certainly not the central meaning. >> True for "water", false (apparently) for {djacu}. lojbab << xorxes: >I would never use {pa djacu} for one molecule. That would >be {pa selci be lo'e djacu}. {pa djacu} for me is a quantity >of water, normally in its liquid state. But then why isn't a person "pa selci be lo'e prenu", with pa prenu being a quantity of persons (i.e. a people) >> Different specifications for different predicates -- vaguely determinate individuals vs -- not mass but -- indeterminate individuals. |