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[lojban] Re: ratni
On 5/5/08, Penguino <spheniscine@gmail.com> wrote:
I think x2 can be either a number (li pa) or the "property" of being a particular element (lo ka cidro).
ie i mi tugni
The first place seems to be a physical object, an atom, and the other two places are abstract properties which that atom has. The first and only place of "cidro" is a physical object, one or more atoms of hydrogen, a quantity of hydrogen. So I think it's most appropriate to put a [cidro] in the first place of "ratni":
lo cidro cu ratni li pa -- Some quantity of hydrogen is an atom whose atomic number is one.
Stevo's three examples:
"le cidro cu ratni li pa" -- that makes sense. The first place is an atom, which is described by the word "cidro". Its atomic number is one, as you'd expect. It probably expresses a much more specific sentiment than it was intending; it's only talking about some particular atom.
"le cidro cu se ratni li pa" -- that does not make sense. The first place is an atomic number, described by the word "cidro"-- that makes sense enough; pretty much another way of saying "one". The second place is an atom, though, which is specified to be the *number* one. Numbers are not atoms.
"le cidro pe li pa cu se ratni" -- this sort of makes sense, but doesn't seem very ordinary to say. It's saying: I'm going to describe something by saying "cidro", and so you know which "cidro" I mean, I'll tell you it's associated with the number one. OK got that?-- Now I'll tell you: It's an atomic number. That seems like a puzzle of a sentence to say something so simple.
What occurs to me to say myself to express the sentiment I think we're getting at is:
lo'e ratni poi cidro cu ratni li pa
The typical atom which is hydrogen is an atom with atomic number one.
Hydrogen atoms have an atomic number of one.
It looks redundant on the face of it to say "ratni" twice, but I think a lot of clearly spoken Lojban looks redundant, yet isn't. Lojban provides clear contexts for words, which can make them unexpectedly repeatedly useful. (Mu'a, dbrock said "lo drata drata" yesterday and it was very clarifying!)
mu'o mi'e .bret.