From jcowan@reutershealth.com Mon Apr 16 09:36:35 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_2); 16 Apr 2001 16:36:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 88603 invoked from network); 16 Apr 2001 16:36:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 16 Apr 2001 16:36:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.reutershealth.com) (204.243.9.36) by mta1 with SMTP; 16 Apr 2001 16:36:33 -0000 Received: from reutershealth.com ([192.168.3.11]) by mail.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA12125; Mon, 16 Apr 2001 12:39:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3ADB1FD7.4090900@reutershealth.com> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 12:37:43 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux 2.2.16-22 i686; en-US; 0.8) Gecko/20010215 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: biomass@hobbiton.org, lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Three more issues References: <200104161418.f3GEIFP31641@hobbiton.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: John Cowan biomass@hobbiton.org wrote: > Issue A: (This is mainly for la xorxes.) > Without using sets, how can "There are many rats" be said? (The book > says it as That *translates* as "The set of rats is large", which *entails* that there are many rats. A proper *translation* of "There are many rats" would be something like "loi ratcu cu so'imei". > Issue B: > As I understand lujvo, any lujvo may be defined *W/O* tanru, using be > and poi/voi (or je) [assuming that is the same as > , and is the same as voi brode>. > > Examples: > brabloti = bloti poi barda = bloti je barda > bifmlo = molki be lo nu brife Those are *believed* to be *the most common* lujvo-making patterns. No such claim of exclusivity is possible, as the chapter on lujvo-making is at pains to point out. There are exceptional patterns. (If you want -gua!spi, you know where to find it.) > Issue B.1: > , therefore is *not* a beetle, but any shelled insect. But that isn't a useful concept: the adult forms of all insects whatsoever have chitin shells. > If this is not true, then there is no true way to understand > lujvo from there definition, only get a clue. Just so. Lujvo-making is a creative process! > Issue C: > Since tanru are (very) semantically ambiguous, how can we allow > ourselves to define language concepts using tanru (e.g. , > , etc? Those would mean extremely 'wide' concepts! No, they mean (Humpty Dumpty style) what we intend them to mean. We do not define concepts using tanru; rather, we refer to concepts using tanru. > Issue D: > Why the hell does mean what it means? How do the two terms > connect, and why would it mean only one word? Usage. "Valsi" means "word". > What's the real > difference between a brivla and a selbri, then? A selbri need not be a valsi. > I mean, is lo valsi, isn't it? No. -- There is / one art || John Cowan no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein