On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 5:51 PM, tijlan
<jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
On 15 May 2011 15:58, Michael Turniansky <
mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
> Although xorxes and John Clifford seem to understand my point (whether or
> not they agree), I am least happy that I am formulating my POV in a
> comprehensible manner. And yet, here I am being sucked in again, because
> you refuse to leave it go.
rather than not to.
>> > Of course, since you do believe that, I hope you are prepared,
>> > because all of the trained assassins I am sending your way are deadly.
>> > You better start worrying about their cardinality.
>>
>> "all of the trained assassins" (ro lo broda), given no context, can
>> mean one thousand (ki'o lo broda) or none (no lo broda) or else. In
>> any case, it refers to "the trained assassins" (lo broda), something
>> -- not nothing, not nomei.
>
> Then I leave you with a question. If broda = "the trained assassins that
> I am sending your way", Then "no lo xo broda"? If you insist I can only
> send you zero OF some trained assassins, then how many assassins am I
> sending you none OF?
I don't know.
More pertinent to my point isn't how many assassins there are, but
whether the sumti is referring to something or nothing.
> Please quanitfy that number for me.
> For whether you
> know the answer or not (or indeed, whether one CAN know what the answer is
> or not), there must be some answer to it.
Whether or not I know the answer would determine whether or not I
could truthfully quantify the number (should there be any objective
answer to it at all). I don't know 'the answer'; are you asking me to
arbitrarily make one up?
No, I am not asking you to arbitrarily make one up. I am asking you to think about exactly how many trained assassing I am sending your way, because all of them are deadly. (And if you think the answer is more than zero, that says a lot more about your paranoia then it does about lojban quanitifers.)
There need not be any exact number as 'the answer' to "lo xo broda" in
order for "lo broda" to be a reference to broda1, something, whose
primal contrast to nothing is what has been at stake in my comments.
The dichotomy of "some quantity / no quantity" precedes the
particulars of "some quantity", such as "one" and "three". "One thing"
differs from "zero thing" primarily in that it is something as opposed
to nothing;
I do not disagree with that. I am fully on board with that statement.
"three things" differ from "zero thing" primarily in that
they are both individually and collectively something as opposed to
nothing; and so on. As far as cardinality is concerned, the difference
between "zero" and "some" is more primitive than the difference
between "zero" and positive integers. The fact that "some" can be
meaningful in primitive terms of "non-zero" rather than of such
particulars as "one" or "three", warrants the act of making reference
to something with no provision for its specific total quantity.
It may not be integers, but I would think you defnitely have to be positive reals, at the very least in order to qualify "some". (su'o)
In Lojban, only "no" can exactly quantify nothing, and all non-"no"
cardinalities can be defined by means of contrast to "no": "nonai". If
I had to fill the inner quantifier for "no lo xo broda" from your
example, I might say "nonai".
There's no such grammatical contruct, but again, I would hate to think that you can mean by that negatives, or imaginary numbers.
--gejyspa