From rob@twcny.rr.com Fri Nov 02 19:08:49 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 3 Nov 2001 03:08:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 71544 invoked from network); 3 Nov 2001 03:08:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m10.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 3 Nov 2001 03:08:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout6.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.177) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 3 Nov 2001 03:08:48 -0000 Received: from mail1.twcny.rr.com (mail1-0 [24.92.226.74]) by mailout6.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.6/Road Runner 1.12) with ESMTP id fA338lF20179 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 22:08:47 -0500 (EST) Received: from riff ([24.92.246.4]) by mail1.twcny.rr.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-59787U250000L250000S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 22:08:45 -0500 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.32 #1 (Debian)) id 15zrA3-0000WK-00 for ; Fri, 02 Nov 2001 22:07:55 -0500 Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 22:07:55 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Isn't everything a noun? (was Countability) Message-ID: <20011102220755.A1955@twcny.rr.com> Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com From: Rob Speer X-Yahoo-Profile: squeekybobo On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 05:36:06PM -0800, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote: > Now, if we _want_ to get down to specifics and measure (or count) things, > then we certainly can: {le blanu poi ke'a grake li cipa ke'u} (The 30 > grams of blue stuff). Likewise, {le cipa blanu} (The 30 blue things). > Why should any other predicates like {valsi} be different, just because > it seems "natural" to measure them in units of "units", rather than > grams or meters? Why should we not be able to speak of centimeters of > wordage (as might a typesetter, for example) rather than specific > individual "units" of wordage? The language already favors the "unit" > interpretation of things by having simple quantifiers like {le pa...} > without specific measurement units, and if we want to further emphasize > the countable nature of something, we have {selci} (though its gloss that > x2 is usually a mass-ish kind of thing seems out of place). So why > further limit the meaning of any predicate by including the "unit of" > as part of its definition, when there's no benefit to it, and clearly > some problems? This all makes a lot of sense. > Am I mistaken that a simple quantifier on any predicate implies that > number of "units" of some kind? For example, couldn't "the 17 tallest > men..." thing be {lo paze xadni clarai be fo lo'i nanmu} (The 17 body- > longest-things, among the set of men) rather than {le'i paze nanmu...} > or something else awkward? The problem with "The 17 tallest men", once again, is that you don't want to end up saying that each one is the tallest; quantifiers and sets aren't the issue. All the reasonable translations I've seen have had {su'epazemoi} in there somewhere. Is {ro le su'epazemoi be lei nanmu bei le ka clani} awkward? Or the glorkable version, {ro le clani nanmu su'epazemoi}? -- la rab.spir noi sarji zo moi