Re: quantifiers on sumti - late response

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

Xorxes:
> la djan cusku di'e
> > > How does this work? Are {suo do} and {ro do} okay as sumti?
> > They are, indeed:  "at least one of you" and "all of you" respectively.
> > You can precede any sumti whatever with a quantifier.
> The problem with {do} is its individual/mass ambivalence. While {ro do}
> suggests that {do} refers to one or more individuals, other uses seem
> to suggest otherwise. For example, what does {do bevri lo tanxe} mean?
> "Each of you carries a box" or "You all together carry a box"?
> To be consistent, {do} should always be a mass (because mi'o, ma'a,
> etc. are defined as masses, not individuals), and the proper way of saying
> "each of you" and "two of you" should be {ro lu'a do} and {re lu'a do}.

I think the default should actually be an implicit {loe}, the "myopic
singularizer".  Since there is no point in using quantifiers with loe,
that would leave {re do} unambiguously meaning "two of you".  For "the
mass of you" (not a terribly useful concept), {luo do}.

> (BTW, the {ro}s are not wrong, but confuse the issue, since there is
> only one of each set, maybe you meant {lo'i ro glezdi}, which is also
> not needed because {ro} is the default.)

Ah. {lo broda} is {lo suo broda} and {lohi broda} is {lohi ro broda}?

> You could have said: [...] {naku roda glezdi gi'o nungle}.

That's what I meant.

> > People have learnt {du'u} and {du}. You can't go round messing with
> > that. Allowing, say, {duo} as an allomorph of {du'u} would be better.
> I wasn't really really serious with that suggestion (only somewhat
> really serious), but I doubt that learning an allomorph would be any
> easier. It's enough that we have to learn a lot of double rafsi,
> I don't really want double cmavo on top of that.

The old polysyllabic cmavo would become obsolete & archaic.  Only those
researching ancient Lojban archives would need to know them.

It might well be easier to learn to swap {du} & {duu} (& were it voted
on I'd be in favour), but it will never get support from Lojban Central.
[Who invented that term?  Was it Nick?  It reminds me of John Le Carre -
Moscow Central, run by Karla.]

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And