Re: [lojban] Masses

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 5:33 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  Since the distributive sense can always be expressed by the use
> of external quantifiers, there was no need for a special form for that. So the
> unquantified form could be used for the collective sense.  However, it was
> thought (and practice shows this was a correct thought), that there was also
> needed a neutral expression, unmarked for either collective or distributive.

Also, if "collective" means "all together" and "distributive" means
"one by one" or "individually", there are a lot of other options in
between: in pairs, in threes, some in pairs and some individually, and
so on. "All together" and "one by one" are just the two extremes. If
we only have forms for the extremes we are left with no form for all
the intermediate cases, and if we do have a form that doesn't
distinguish between all the intermediate possibilities there is no
reason to exclude one of the extremes from that neutral form.

> This role was given to simple forms, without external quantifiers.  Then the
> somewhat shakier thought came along that we didn't really need a separate form
> for collective use, since the use of the simple form was generally clear and,
> when not, the matter was easily rectified.

There's still "loi" and "lo'u". But if "loi pano verba cu bevri loi
pano stuzi lo purdi" means that the ten children together carried the
ten chairs bundled together, we still need a way to say that the ten
children carried the ten chairs to the garden without having to
specify whether they each took one chair, or they worked in pairs, or
some worked in groups and others individually, and so on. Maybe all we
care to say or all we know is that they took the chairs to the garden,
without saying or knowing how the job was distributed.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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