Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: Language of Logic and Logical Language.

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 20:16:19 -0000

Jorge:
> le nanmu poi claxu lo'e selnelrai skari cu cusku di'e
> 
> >Would you mind elaborating on this? How does Lojban have an
> >obligatory singular-plural distinction?
> 
> The usual claim is that Lojban doesn't have obligatory
> tense and number. This is true enough for tense. You have
> but to look at any Lojban text and chances are that most
> sentences won't be marked by tense. Tense is not obligatory
> and it is very easy to avoid. But when it comes to number...
> First, you cannot avoid having to choose an article/quantifier
> for most sumti. This choice is extremely intertwined with
> the singular-plural distinction. Then {le} and {lei} are the
> only gadri for which the singular-plural distinction could be
> avoided. But look at any Lojban text and try to find a bare
> {le broda} that refers to more than one broda, or a {lei broda}
> that refers to a single broda. You won't find them easily.
> So my contention is that to put on the same level non-obligatory
> tense in Lojban with non-obligatory number is misleading.

I agree with you, as you know.

Rather than saying that Lojban has an obligatory number 
distinction, it would be better to say 
(a) usage tends to fall into the singular-le, plural-lei habit, 
(b) for various reasons an awful lot of le-usage is incorrect, 
(c) optional tense works okay because it's not inherently mixed
up with quantification, whereas optional number is messy because
number can't be extricated from matters of quantification.

--And.