Re: [lojban] Named multiples

[Daniel Brockman <dbrockman@gmail.com>]

2010/5/7 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 8:03 AM, Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se> wrote:
>> (I especially look forward to hearing xorxes' view on this.)
>
> My view on this is that CMEVLA should be merged with BRIVLA. There is
> really no reason to artificially restrict the syntactic possibilities
> of CMEVLA.
>
>> For example, I drive an Opel, so in Lojban I could say
>>
>>    .i mi klama fu lo me la .opel.
>
> With ".opel." as a predicate, this would be:
>
>       mi klama fu lo .opel.

That is definitely an interesting view.  I knew I wouldn't be disappointed,
but I didn't expect this kind of almost psychedelic proposition.

I'm a little afraid to comment on this other than to say that I'm intrigued.

>> Lojban is ostensibly unmarked for number, but we Lojbanists are
>> not used to named multiples; we only ever talk about named
>> singles, like {la .lojban.} or {la .xorxes.}.
>
> Right, because we usually do give names only to singles. "Opel" is not
> really the "name" of your car, at least not any more than your dog's
> name is "dog". "Opel" is what your car is:
>
>   lo do karce cu .opel.

In effect, what you're saying is that you want to completely merge
cmevla and fu'ivla.   That makes sense to me, and actually seems
similar to the intention of the language designers --- what with their
talk of "stage-2 fu'ivla" and everything.

>> But there's no ban on named multiples, so {klama fu la .opel.}
>> should be perfectly okay, since it's obvious from context that in
>> this case {la .opel.} is a multiple: "the cars named Opel."
>
> But the cars are not "named" Opel any more than spaghetti are "named"
> spaghetti. If all "la" does is "just like 'lo' except that the word
> that follows ends in a consonant instead of a vowel", then we wouldn't
> need "la" at all. What "la" says is that we don't care at all about
> the meaning of the word that folllows, we care only about its form.
> But when you say that you drive an Opel, the word Opel does have a
> meaning, just like when you say you eat spaghetti, the word spaghetti
> does have a meaning.

I don't really see what you're saying here, unless you also want to
argue that {.xorxes.} has a "meaning".  What's the difference?

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