Subject: Re: [lojban] Isn't everything a noun? (was Countability)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 13:16:50 EST

In a message dated 11/2/2001 7:37:58 PM Central Standard Time, [email-masked] 
writes:

> I don't see how (A) can possibly be reconciled with the books, or
> with general Lojban foundations. The books make a point that predicates
> are not "nouns" and "verbs", and that "le/lo" descriptions are not
> inherently quantified, so the whole concept of mass noun/count noun is
> meaningless. Which one is {blanu}, for instance? It can be used as a
> noun, right? Is {le blanu} "the blue thing(s)", or "some blue stuff"?
> How can it not be either?
> 

The point is that almost any metaphysic can be reconciled with the book and 
the foundations (or else we have screwed up on one desideratum). {le} & {lo} 
are inherently quantified ({su'o lo ro broda} and {ro le su'o broda}) but 
that doesn't say what sorts of things they are: loci of properties, 
manifestations of Mr. Broda, slices of Broda, basic brodas, copies of Broda 
on imperfect media, etc. etc. In particular, it says they are individuated, 
but not how, or where in the scheme of things individuation lies. On the 
other hand, the basic expressions do not require the singular-plural 
distinction, which makes no sense in a mass -- rather than unit -- 
metaphysics. 

<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?>

Well, this says "some of the 17 things that are all the body-tallest among 
men" which is not quite what you want. "the 17 men [who are taleest among 
men?]" is probably better.

rob:

<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}?>

Will ordering by height -- with the direction not specified -- work. Might 
not le nanmu pazemai such that every member is talled than any non-member 
work better? I think I missed this go-round.