[lojban] Re: the meter is a unit of length

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 8/4/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>  What we mean when we say the English
> sentence is something like {le se mitre cu ni
> clani}, "How many meters a thing is is its
> length," more or less (we could fill in some of
> the blanks for greater precision here). 

{le se mitre} is a pure number. We can say, for example

  le se mitre be ti cu du le se grake be ta
  The number of meters of this is the the number 
  of grams of that.

{ni} has been used or described both as a klani and as
a se klani. If it's a se klani, then {lo se mitre cu ni ...}
can make sense.

  lo mitre cu klani
  lo se mitre cu se klani

{ni} may be one of those, or perhaps something else
({ka (se) la'u ma kau}, for example).

> This
> doesn't *say* that the meter is a unit of length,
> but does the work that claim is meant to do and
> so implicates it.  Given Lojban's predicatizing
> of measures, it is a little hard to see what can
> go in for the first place of {gradu}, if that
> word means anything like its English translation
> (which it very well may not, of course -- and
> this problem seems some indication that it does
> not).

I would say that the x1 of gradu is like the x1 of mitre 
and of klani. 

   lo gradu be ko'a = lo klani be li pa bei ko'a


> > What is the difference between the x2 and x3 of
> > {gradu}?
> 
> Trusting the English more than seems justified,
> x2 is a scale (presumably a system of measures:
> vaious units and some external specifications of
> them (the old scratch on a platinum-iridium bar
> or some weird multiple of the wavelength of some
> color in some spectrum). It is interesting that
> that is marked as {si'o}, the same as one
> suggested marker to convert {mitre} into "is a
> meter." 

The gi'uste more or less consistently proposes {si'o}
for "scales", whatever they are:

ckilu [ ci'u ] scale
x1 (si'o) is a scale of units for measuring/observing/determining x2 (state) 

gradu [ rau ] unit ; 'degree, grad' 
x1 [magnitude] is a unit/degree of/on scale/reference standard x2
(si'o) measuring property x3

klani [ lai ] quantity
x1 is a quantity quantified/measured/enumerated by x2 (quantifier) on
scale x3 (si'o)

merli [ mre ] measure
x1 (agent) measures/evaluates x2 [quantity] as x3 units on scale x4
(si'o), with accuracy x5

dukti [ dut ] opposite ; 'contrary' 
x1 is polar opposite from/contrary to x2 in property/on scale x3
(property/si'o)

But it is not clear to me how a bridi gets converted to a scale,
and also {si'o} is proposed for very different things in {bangu},
{klesi}, {manri}, {sidbo}, {sucta} and {tanru}.

> x3 is just some property (or, more
> likely, the quantitative aspect of some property
> -- {ni})

If ni is the quantitative aspect of a property (which I might
write as {ka se la'u ma kau ...}) then it's not clear how it can 
be a number, like se mitre, se klani, te merli or namcu.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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