From xod@sixgirls.org Fri Sep 01 14:08:50 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 25070 invoked from network); 1 Sep 2000 21:08:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 1 Sep 2000 21:08:48 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO erika.sixgirls.org) (207.12.88.107) by mta2 with SMTP; 1 Sep 2000 21:08:48 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by erika.sixgirls.org (8.11.0+3.3W/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e81L8gr02095 for ; Fri, 1 Sep 2000 17:08:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 17:08:42 -0400 (EDT) To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] How many? In-Reply-To: <20000901204500.11563.qmail@pi.meson.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself On 1 Sep 2000, Mark E. Shoulson wrote: > >From: Pierre Abbat > >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 ----- We have an unlimited faith in the ability of technology to alter nature. We need the same faith in the ability of culture to alter human nature.