Subject: Re: [lojban] How many?

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 17:08:42 -0400 (EDT)

On 1 Sep 2000, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

> >From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
> >Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 14:02:09 -0400
> >
> >
> >If "How old are you" is {do nanca li xo}, would "how many species of fish are
> >there" be {ta finpe li xo} or {ta finpe xo da}?
> 
> No... {ta finpe li xo} means "What number is the fish-species of that
> thing?" ... or something like that; it doesn't make sense, so it's hard to
> translate. The x2 place of finpe isn't meant for a number.

Is Lojban a strongly-typed language?

> 
> The second attempt makes more sense, but doesn't mean what you want. It
> means "that/those thing/things is a fish of how many species?" Come to
> think of it, it IS a little close to what you're after, but only in a
> restricted context: I could point to a big pile of fish and ask how many
> species it contained that way, I *think*.
> 
> The reason why {do nanca li xo} works is because the x2 place of {nanca}
> expects a *number*, defining the duration. Look at the definition of
> {nanca}:
> 
> nanca: x1 is x2 years in duration (default is 1 year) by standard x3; 
> 
> So x1 is some event, and x2 is the number of years. {nanca} expresses the
> relationship between an event and its number-of-years-of-duration (and a
> standard for measuring words, but we're not worried about that right now).
> 
> finpe, on the other hand, looks like:
> 
> finpe: x1 is a fish of species x2 
> 
> It's a relationship between something(s) and its species-as-a-fish.
> (Obviously, a dog's species-as-a-fish doesn't make sense, so dogs wouldn't
> be in the x1 place of {finpe}, unless negated or something). "The number
> how-many" isn't a species of fish (though it IS a number, so it works for
> {nanca}), and thus doesn't make sense in the x2. {xo da}, meaning "How
> many somethings" IS a species of fish, or rather could be bound to some
> number of them (they're "somethings"). So {ta finpe xo da} makes sense,
> but doesn't mean what you want.

If we put a number in finpe x2, that number is associated with
fish-species. How many different ways are there to associate numbers with
fish-species? If species are numbered according to some scheme, that's one
way. In general though, numbers count distinct things. Therefore a number
there should be assumed to be counting distinct species. However to make
that clear, I can see the sense of using mei.

> The trouble is that {ta} refers to some *particular* thing/s you're
> indicating in some way, not "all the ones out there."
> 
> For "how many fish are there?" Mmm... How about:
> 
> lo'i se finpe cu xomei

ro finpe xomei

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