RE: [lojban] useless selmaho? (was: RE: mine, thine, hisn, hern, itsn ourn, yourn and theirn

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com>]

Rob:
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 07:14:23PM +0100, And Rosta wrote:
> > Jorge:
> > >      li mo'e reda te'a re du li pa
> > >      Exactly two numbers squared are equal to 1.
> > 
> > But can we think of a useful possible use?
> 
> That's a useful mathematical statement. I wouldn't expect that cmavo 
> which talk
> about numbers would be very useful outside of math.

not sure if you read the earlier messages, but I'd (in effect) pointed
out that in English we do say things like "a surprising number of
people were ill", which in Lojban terms is converting a sumti to a
quantifier. And this is an ordinary not a mathsy statement.

As for mekso, if all it's good for is talking about maths then it would
be very helpful to learner to point out to them that they don't need to
learn it. If they want to say Exactly two numbers squared are equal to 1
then they can do it the ordinary way with bridi, brivla etc.

But before we can say "Don't bother learning mekso", it's important to
find out which bits, like mo'e, have important nonmaths uses, because
those bits one will want to learn.

--And.