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Re: [lojban] Final state of cenba/zenba/etc.

la latro'a cu cusku di'e

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 6:07 PM, selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de
<mailto:seladwa@gmx.de>> wrote:

    But there is no number in most predicates, for example {xendo} or
    {melbi}. {ni}'s role then is to introduce a number. {co'e ma kau}
    can hardly be called a solution.

There's no number pertinent to {xendo} or {melbi}, so there's no reason
to introduce one. You can talk about "extent" for those, but that is not
sufficiently precisely quantified to get a number.
Many people like to measure all sorts of things on (sometimes ad-hoc) scales. "She is a 10" when talking about attractiveness or "He dove a 9.5" for high diving at Olympia. There are many occasions where one would like to introduce a scale and a number. 



    And that's exactly the kind of {ni} I don't like. I base {ni}
    entirely on {klani}. Your vague {ni} is unlike anything in the
    language, but maybe you can show me a Lojban definition of it.

For me it's a primitive, like {nu}, which describes "extent" of bridi
for which this makes sense. {.i lo solri lo lunra cu zmadu lo ni ce'u
carmi}. {.i lo mamta lo patfu cu zmadu lo ni ce'u xendo}. {.i lo speni
cu zenba lo ni ce'u xendo lo panzi be lo speni be vo'a}. etc.
But you do allow {ni} both with and without a {ce'u}, don't you? I find that odd. Why allow it for {ni} and not for {ka}? I think {ce'u}-less {ka} died out for a good reason, and so in my opinion there should only be one {ni}, either with or without {ce'u}. I prefer it without. 






        It's not a number, at least not typically
        (in my view it never is, since there's no clear rule for when it
        can and
        can't be and whether it is or isn't has a marked impact on
        semantics.)


    For me it's always a number.

Can you come up with an example where there definitely is a number
that's pertinent but where the number doesn't fill any place involved in
the bridi?


I gave two examples above.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

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