Re: TECH: Any old thing whatsoever (was RE: do djica loi ckafi je'i tcati)

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

la lojbab cusku di'e

> A major reason why "loi tanxe" should work in Lojban is that in Lojban,
> singular plural is a marked distinction, AND that all nouns can be considered
> as mass nouns.

Nobody says {loi tanxe} doesn't work. What I'm saying is that it doesn't
mean "any box", it means "[part of] the mass of boxes".

So, I could say

        mi pilno loi tanxe le nu vasru lei mi cukta
        I use boxes to keep my books

there's no problem with {loi tanxe}, it works, as a mass of boxes.

> You do not, in English, typically say "I need *a* water", you say "I need
> water", and leave the quantity of the mass to be determinable from context.

Exactly. Just like in Lojban

        mi nelci loi djacu
        I like water (not "I like any water")

Now, how do we say "I need water"? It can't be {mi nitcu loi djacu}, because
that says that there is some part of the mass of water that I need, and
that's not what "I need water" means.

> If you need to be specific, you say something like "I need a glass of water",
> or "I need a liter of water".  One way to do this in Lojban, for boxes is
> "mi nitcu pa selci poi tanxe" "I need one indivisible subunit of the mass
> of boxes."

It's the same problem. Is {pa selci} one (certain) selci, or is it any selci?


Jorge