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Re: [lojban] Individuals and xorlo
la .guskant. cu cusku di'e
Le mercredi 5 février 2014 20:47:54 UTC+9, selpa'i a écrit :
If I may, Dan is asking why the unit {lo xanto} cannot be (implicitly)
{lo ci xanto}, in which case three elephants would be counted as one
counting off by threes. Using a property in zilkancu3 would probably be
clearer for that reason. As it stands, some people seem to think that
the zilkancu3 unit contains a context-dependent inner quantifier, thus
counting of by {xo'e mei}. I don't think that's the intended
meaning, so
it should be stated clearly that we're dealing with singletons.
If you mean simply "one-some" of a mass with the word "singleton", I
agree with you for English "explanation" of {lo PA broda}. As for Lojban
"definition", I would rather support the current definition, and need a
Lojban definition of {kancu}, which is used in the definition of {zilkancu}.
Right, I'm not proposing to change the definition. I only explained the
reason for Dan's confusion. Making zilkancu (or kancu) clearer, would
solve the problem, but it would also help to explicitly state (in
English, for beginners) that in {lo PA broda}, we don't count by context
dependent units. Counting off by {lo broda} is intended to mean that {lo
ci broda} contains three individuals that each {broda}. This is what the
current definitions tries to say. It just wasn't clear enough for Dan or
la latro'a.
However, if you mean "individual" with the word "singleton", it is
better not to state it, because any mass, no matter if it is used as
collective or distributive, can be a unit "one-some" in some sense.
Once you have a mass, then that mass is a new individual altogether. But
a sumti like {mi'o} or {mi jo'u do} is not a mass, it's just two
individuals together.
An individual is defined as follows (based on Plural Predication by
Thomas McKay, 2006):
"SUMTI is individual" =ca'e {RO DA poi ke'a me SUMTI zo'u SUMTI me DA}
where RO and DA are not a singular quantifier {ro} and a singular
variable {da} of Lojban, but a plural quantifier and a plural variable
respectively.
Yes, that is exactly the definition of "individual" I am using.
If {zilkancu}_3 should be always an individual, {lo ckafi} is not an
individual in many cases of universe of discourse, and it cannot be
{zilkancu}_3.
{lo ckafi} is an amount of coffee. If I have two separate amounts of
coffee, then I can count them together {lo re ckafi}.
I would still call {lo ckafi} an individual. Using a property in
zilkancu3 has been suggested, so we either count by {lo ckafi} or {lo ka
ckafi}. The thing that makes {lo pa ckafi} different from {lo pa prenu}
is that splitting {lo pa ckafi} will result in two new {lo ckafi},
whereas splitting a person will just... kill it.
However, {lo ckafi} can be naturally a unit:
{mi cpedu tu'a lo pa ckafi} = {mi cpedu tu'a zo'e noi ke'a ckafi gi'e
zilkancu li pa lo ckafi}
Certainly.
This flexibility of {zilkancu}_3, the unit, is advantage of xorlo, and
indispensable for keeping expressiveness of Lojban.
I don't think anyone is trying to remove flexible units.
mi'e la selpa'i mu'o
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