[lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

["Jorge Llambías" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 6/5/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > As you may recall, my suggestion mirrors the
> > > English for "individually" and "collectively" (or
> > > "together"), attaching as convenient to sumti or
> > > predicate place (so, I suppose that UI is about
> > > the only selmaho that will work -- unless we
> > > invent a new one).

Here is a mathematical proof that it cannot be done with a
single word. Consider the sentence:

    ko'a ko'e ko'i ko'o ko'u broda gi'e brode

It consists of eight words, so there are exactly nine places where
a word meaning "together" could be added.

But there are ten argument places it could be modifying:
each of the five slots of broda and each of the five slots of brode.

Therefore, a single word, no matter how strategically well placed, could
not be used to do the job of unambiguously marking any sumti slot
as collective.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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