Quine text

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!ctr.columbia.edu!shoulson>]

Just one point on something passing between Colin and Nick, it's been
giving me some trouble too:

(Well, two things:  I didn't know {pa'a} was a "like" BAI; I've been
wishing for one myself.  Good to know...)

>> {lo remna cu morsi} doesn't make me think of "Man is mortal". Go for {loi
>> remna}, or {ro remna zo'u ri ba morsi}.
>Point taken, but "loi remna" is just plain wrong. Perhaps "ro remna cu
>(paroi?) morsi".

I think I'm slowly getting to understand the way {loi} works, from a
statement made in passing by John Cowan in one of his papers.  As I see it
now (as opposed to how I saw it 2 weeks ago and how I will see it in a
little while), the mass is sort of talking about the individuals
collectively.  That is, the qualities of the collective do not enter into
things.  As John worded it, the qualities of the mass are the qualities of
the members.  Thus, the collective of humanity, {lo'i remna}, is neither
male nor female, but the mass of humanity, {loi remna} is both male and
female.  {loi bidju} is small, since pebbles are small, but {lo'i bidju} is
large, since there are many pebbles ({lo'i} works with qualities of the
collective, not the individuals).  This leads me to worry a bit about the
distinction between {loi} and {lo'e}, so I've gotta think about it more.

By that reasoning, {loi remna cu morsi} would work well for "Man is mortal"
(would {lo'e remna} be better?), and {lo'i remna noroi morsi} would work
for "Man is immortal" (i.e. the human race as an entity).

This sound good, people?

~mark