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Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 14:45:46 +0300
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Subject: Re: [lojban] centripetality: subset vs component
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From: Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@MATH.BAS.BG>

Jorge Llambias wrote:
> The two aspects most relevant to dates have
> leftward expansion: numbers (the integer part) and tanru.
>
> Numbers are ordered most significant digit to least
> significant digit, with zeroes elided from both ends.

But not with significant things elided from the big end.
Yes, there is a certain similarity between numbers and
dates, but it should not be overestimated.

> If we use a tanru to express a date it has to be
> something like:
> 
> {le 2000moi nanca ke 5moi masti ke 11moi djedi}

I don't think so. By definition a tanru of the form {#1 #2}
means `#1-type_of #2', under some (intentionally vague)
definition of `type_of'. But 11 May is not a particular
type of an 11th day (of a month), nor is May 2000 a type
of 5th month (of a year). The larger unit does not specify
a type of the smaller; it specifies an instance. So rather
than `What kind of 11th? May 11th', it goes: `Which 11th?
(The 11th of which month?) The 11th of May'. And such
constructions tend to branch to the right in Lojban.

Come to that, the dates-as-tanru analysis may turn out
to hold in the opposite way. Consider this:

The expression {cmalu ke nixli ckule} is a predicate
which describes a member of the set/class/category
`school', further narrowed down to the subset `girls'
school' and then to a subset of that subset, by the
addition of modifiers to the left.

Similarly, `The war ended in 1945' means that the time
of the event belongs to the interval (set of moments)
that is the year 1945; and if we want to narrow down
that to a subinterval (subset), say to the 5th month,
and then to a particular day of the month, should the
modifiers not go to the beginning?

Today is a day of 2000 -- to be more precise, it is a
May-ish [day of 2000] -- to be even more precise, it is
a [12th-of-the-month]-type_of a [May-ish [day of 2000]].
Looks perfectly tanru-like to me.

--Ivan