Subject: Re: sets, masses, &c. (was: RE: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautol...

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 15:50:28

la and cusku di'e

>1. How DO you say "apple" (as in "the bowl was full of apple") in
>Lojban, without using inherently vague tanru, and without having
>to define a lujvo for every such mass term?

Since there is no gismu in Lojban meaning "x1 is a quantity
of apple (the substance)", you can't refer to a quantity of
apple substance unless you use a lujvo or a fu'ivla. The
article {loi} does not extract apple material from apples
or shirt material from shirts. In English you wouldn't
say "a bowl full of shirt" if the bowl was full of cloth.
Some words in English work for both the object and for the
main substance of that object, but Lojban is more strict
in that respect. It would seem that {loi} has nothing to
do with mass nouns in English.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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