Re: Masses [was Re: mut]

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@intermedia.com.ar>]

>>                 lei ci nixli cu dunda lei cukta lei re nanla
>>                 le ci nixli cu dunda le mu cukta le re nanla

la robin cusku di'e

>I guess Jorge and I are never going to see eye to eye on articles!   I see
{lei}
>and {loi} as ways of clarifying {le} and {lo}.

Is what you say really so different from what I say?
I said {lei ci nixli cu dunda lei mu cukta lei re nanla} describes
a single relationship, while {le ci nixli cu dunda le mu cukta le re nanla}
describes thirty different relationships.

What you say about {mi se batci lo/loi ci gerku} is very similar.
However, be careful with lo/loi and inner quantifiers. {lo ci gerku}
means "at least one of the three books that there are in all".
You meant {ci lo gerku}, "three of all the books that there are in all".
Also {loi ci gerku} is "some part of the mass of three dogs that
there are in all", and you meant probably {lu'o ci lo gerku}
or {lo gerku cimei}, "some mass of three dogs".

The inner quantifier is useful with le/lei because it quantifies
the complete set of what is under discussion or one has in mind.
The inner quantifier with lo/loi should in general best be left
unspecified, because it quantifies the set of all those that really
are, and we normally are not in a position to give an exact number
for that.

>On
>the other hand, it could still mean that I was bitten by a pack of three
dogs,
>because whether I view them as a mass or as three individual dogs is
subjective.

In your example you're absolutely right. If you were bitten by a pack
of dogs and each one of them bit you, you might describe the
situation both as {mi se batci le ci gerku} and {mi se batci lei ci
gerku}. You can view it both as one relationship between you and
the pack, or as three relationships, one with each dog.

But other examples are not that subjective at all. The piano example,
for example:

>le(i) ci prenu cu bevri le pipno
>
>With {lei} it's straightforward - they get together and carry the piano.
With
>{le} the standard interpreation would be that ko'a, ko'e and ko'o
individually
>carry the piano on three separate occasions.  However, just to be
controversial,
>I shall propose that with {le} it is also possible that they carried the
piano at
>the same time, which from the point of view of the observer is the same as
them
>carrying the piano _en masse_.

That can only be right if it is true that {ko'a bevri le pipno ije ko'e
bevri
le pipno ije ko'i bevri le pipno}. Whether it is acceptable to say that
this is true or not, depends exclusively on the semantics of bevri. Is
the x1 of bevri supposed to be the full carrier, or a simple participation
is enough to be called a bevri?  I would say a participation does
not make one into a bevri, but in any case if we disagree we are
disagreeing about the meaning of {bevri}, not of le/lei.


There are examples where this disagreement is less likely.
For example:

             le ci prenu cu grake li parenoki'o
             Each of the three persons weighs 120 kg.

            lei ci prenu cu grake li parenoki'o
            The three persons (together) weigh 120 kg.

Obviously those two situations are very very different, so you
cannot use {le} there in place of {lei}.

>du'u le ci prenu cu bevri le pipno kei nibli du'u le prenu goi ko'a cu
bevri le
>pipno kei .e du'u le prenu goi ko'e cu bevri le pipno kei .e du'u le prenu
goi
>ko'o cu bevri le pipno .i pe'i la'e ko'a .e ko'e .e ko'o cavi bevri le
pipno kei
>du la'e lei ci prenu goi ko'a .e ko'e .e ko'o cavi bevri le pipno

Change {bevri le pipno} to {grake li parenoki'o} and you will see
that it is not a logical implication at all. The fallacy is in identifying
{lei ci prenu} with {ko'a e ko'e e ko'o}. The correct identification
is with {ko'a joi ko'e joi ko'o}, which is not distributive!

co'o mi'e xorxes