Re: tech:masses

la .and. cusku di'e

> I now feel much clearer in my mind about the meaning of {loi}, {lei}
> and {loe}. About {lee}, {lai} and {lahi} I remain uncertain. For {lee},
> I suggested pc's "average chicagoan" interpretation.

I don't remember what that is.  "le'e broda" means that you take the
members of "lo'i broda", perform an in-mind selection, and then take
the "lo'e" of the result.  So it gives you a {lo'e}-type abstraction
that is based on a subset of the population chosen by the speaker.

> {lai}, I hope
> could be a collective counterpart to {la}, which is distributive;
> maybe that's the current situation, and I just hadn't realized it
> because noone uses {la} to refer to pluralities.

Just so.  {lai cribe} is a mass of those whom the speaker on this occasion
refers to as "Bear", and {lai smit.} ditto for "Smith".

> As for {lahi broda},
> I presume it's the set that has ro la broda as its member.

I'm not sure what you mean by "member".  If you mean "member(s)", then
this is correct.

> If that's
> correct, then whereas in the le- and lo-series, {le} and {lo} are the
> basic terms, in some ways in the la-series it is {lai} that is the
> basic term, since it is the referent of {lai broda} that is actually
> called "broda". Thus,
> 
> [1]	lai cmen cu selcme zo cmen
> 
> would be true, but
> 
> [2]	la cmen cu selcme zo cmen
> 
> (if {la cmen} refers to a plurality) and
> 
> [3]	lahi cmen cu selcme zo cmen
> 
> could be false.

No, I think this is wrong.  If "la cmen." refers to more than one thing,
then each of them must be named "cmen.", so your Example 2 is correct, and
means "Each of the referents of 'la cmen.' is named 'cmen.'", or more
colloquially "Each Shmen is called 'Shmen'".

Your Example 1 means that the mass of things which are named "cmen." is itself
called "cmen.", which is probably always true (I can't think of a counterexample
offhand.)  Example 3 is false indeed, unless you choose to give sets
names, but by default the set of things named "John" is not itself
named "John".

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.