Re: masses (the last one should have been dialectology)

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la kris noi ke'a maubo mi prami lo'e mlatu cu cusku di'e

> Jorge and pc were doing mean things to water and cats:
>
> >        le xadba be le vi mlatu cu mlatu
> >        Half of this cat is a cat.
> >
> >I don't think that makes much sense, or I don't know what is mlatu.
>
> mlatu isn't necessarily singular.  If {le vi mlatu} above referred to Loki
> and Thekla, then would {le xadba} be just Loki?

I don't think so. {le vi mlatu} could not refer to them both as one
entity. It would have to refer to each of them. So {le xadba be le vi mlatu}
is "each thing that is half of each of them". Assuming that there is such
a thing that can be described as being half of each of them, perhaps
the mass composed of their left sides, but I don't think that such a
thing is a cat.

> Or would {le} distribute so
> we're really saying {le re xadba be le re vi mlatu}, i.e. half of *each* cat?

It doesn't distribute like that. {ta xadba le re vi mlatu} means that ta
is half of Loki and also the same ta is half of Thekla. Perhaps they are
Siamese cats? But I wouldn't say that {ta mlatu}.

If you say {le re xadba be le re vi mlatu}, then you are talking of two
things, each of which is both half of Loki and half of Thekla, and neither
of which are things I would call cats.

Jorge