I am unsure just what Shockley did, so I can't get into the facts of the matter, only the form of the claim, which looks to be about transistorkind in some special way wrapped up in {finti} and"invent". Exactly how this should be handled, I am unsure, though I think I favor making it a part of the definition of the relevant word. I don't see any particular need to go to ideas here, unless it is the interest of accuracy. I'm not quite sure what "grammaticalize" means,so I am not sure I am recommending it. It does seem to me that those maximal bunches keep turning up, enough so that giving them a separate name from the casual bunches of everyday discussions makes sense. By fiat, as I said, no argument place in Lojban has any restrictions on what can go there, although some insertions may not make a lot of sense. But that is about the meaning of the predicate, not about the grammar of predication. There is no ambiguity in {mi sisku lo broda} beyond that inherent in {lo}expressions. That is, what kind of answer would you give to "Which broda are you seeking?" the problems arise when you deny that you are seeking any particular one(s), since you have committed to there being a particular sought. Hence, the usefulness of {tu'a}, which takes us out of the present universe of discourse into the hypothetical, a much less demanding local.
Sent from my iPad I forgot to reply to this part: On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 8:30 AM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
The only Lojbanic thing I see in all of this at the moment is that that maximal bunch
ought to be given a separate gadri.
As a longtime lurker on this list, I would just assume personally avoid espousing any such specific proposal for the time being :-)
On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
* Monday, 2011-11-14 at 15:24 -0500 - maikxlx <maikxlx@gmail.com>:
I don't think we should feel obliged to treat as a jbokind (whatever
they end up being) everything for which English uses a bare plural.
In this case, surely what Shockley invented was the idea (si'o) of
a transistor.
Martin
So, would you have us write {lo si'o [za'e] grezunca'a cu se finti la .caklis.}? I believe that pretty much {lo si'o broda} = {lo sidbo be lo broda}, where lo broda is again is a reference to a kind with clearly _no_ actuals/mundanes/instances, either needed or wanted. Would you rewrite {lo broda cu sidbo} as {lo si'o broda cu sidbo}?
The idea that both you and John invoke is to grammaticize Lojban's kind references (and John would probabIy like to grammaticize generics as well). In all honesty, I agree we don't have to follow English, and it's worth considering the idea theoretically. It might actually be beneficial*, but aside from the arguable redundancy of kind-marking, I don't believe that anyone has cataloged the large number of bridi places with respect to kinds and generics; each place may well admit one, the other, or both. Until that happens we really don't know how big of a change this would entail -- or at least _I_ don't as a not-so-frequent user.
*For example clearing up the specific/nonspecific distinction in "mi sisku lo broda" would be valuable and should be mandatory -- assuming that both readings are allowed, as I believe they are. -Mike
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