From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Aug 04 20:56:35 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 5 Aug 2001 03:56:34 -0000 Received: (qmail 1188 invoked from network); 5 Aug 2001 03:56:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 5 Aug 2001 03:56:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-2.cais.net) (205.252.14.72) by mta2 with SMTP; 5 Aug 2001 03:56:34 -0000 Received: from user.lojban.org (ppp37.net-A.cais.net [205.252.61.37]) by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f753uWX80568; Sat, 4 Aug 2001 23:56:32 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010804234833.00c27c20@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: vir1036@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 23:54:51 -0400 To: Invent Yourself Subject: Re: [lojban] tu'o (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 05:11 PM 8/4/01 -0400, you wrote: >On Sat, 4 Aug 2001, And Rosta wrote: > > > > I don't see why tu'o would be any stronger than le/lo pa. > > > > Because tu'o is uninformative, it serves to indicate that the > > quantification is a redundant irrelevance. Or so the idea goes. > >Why does tu'o mean 1 more than it means 0? Since it is elliptical, it has unspecified value which is to be inferred from context if important. Barring specific contextual info to the contrary, the difference between 0 and 1 as a quantifier is usually quite significant to the meaning, probably more significant than the difference between 1 and any other positive number. If the speaker intended 0, it would be important, and "no" would also be Zipfeanly shorter than tu'o, which makes it hard to conceive of a time when one would use tu'o for 0 if the value is known. For the same reason, we do not presume that zo'e stands for "noda". lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org