[lojban] defining words in Lojban

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

Let's say you have a word that takes more than one sentence to define. This 
could be because one sentence does not approximate precisely enough the 
meaning of the word, or because the word has different meanings in different 
contexts or as used by different people. I'll take "mammal" for example.

1. A vertebrate which has hair and, as an infant, feeds on milk produced by 
skin glands.
2. A vertebrate with one bone in the jaw and three in each inner ear.
3. A descendant of the last common ancestor of a human, a kangaroo, and a 
platypus.
All three definitions (assuming no mammal species were created along the way) 
define the same set of extant animals. The second is used by paleontologists, 
who have no way of telling whether an animal found as a fossil had milk 
glands, and the third is a cladistic definition. All crown-group mammals (the 
third definition) also satisfy the second definition, but some animals 
satisfy the second definition but not the third.

Now suppose you want to write a definition of "mabru" that has these three 
senses. Do you write the place structure once and then the three senses, or 
do you write the place structure in each sense? (The Lojban for the last two 
animals is "kanguru" and "ornitorinku".)

Pierre
-- 
lo ponse be lo mruli po'o cu ga'ezga roda lo ka dinko

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