From cowan@ccil.org Fri Mar 01 18:32:59 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: cowan@mercury.ccil.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 2 Mar 2002 02:32:59 -0000 Received: (qmail 37345 invoked from network); 2 Mar 2002 02:32:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m6.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Mar 2002 02:32:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mercury.ccil.org) (192.190.237.100) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Mar 2002 02:32:59 -0000 Received: from cowan by mercury.ccil.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 16gzKg-0006FM-00 for ; Fri, 01 Mar 2002 21:33:10 -0500 Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautologies In-Reply-To: <6c.184f3000.29b187d3@aol.com> from "pycyn@aol.com" at "Mar 1, 2002 08:41:39 pm" To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 21:33:10 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=212516 X-Yahoo-Profile: johnwcowan pycyn@aol.com scripsit: > I'm afraid I don't see how putting a left parenthesis in front changes it > from whatever it was before to a number. That's how we express quantities in ways other than mere digit strings. "30 men" is "cino nanmu", but "k men" cannot be "ky. nanmu" (which means "K is a man"), instead "vei ky. [ve'o] nanmu" is required. > (BTW, the example of {vei} in the > book, 18.5.10 (437) is a total muck-up of use-mention conventions I don't see how, except for the use of quotes around "n" in the literal translation, which is intended not to create a quotation, but just for readability, as in "Mind your 'p's and 'q's" (which is not about letters, whatever it does mean). > 17.11.6 (423) a desperate way to avoid an ambiguity created > somewhere back at the beginning of all this, I suspect (and the use-mention > is really bad in this example, too -- flat wrong in fact.) I don't see any use-mention problem here either. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --_The Hobbit_