*old response to Steven B on clani

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

Steven said last month:
>>la stivn cusku di'e
>>> Actually, I'm not sure what
>>> la djan clani
>>> means.
>
>la xorxes cusku di'e
>>It means: "John is long (in longest dimension, by some standard)."
>
>Yes, but it would also seem to mean:
>"John is short (in longest dimension, by some standard)."

This is tordu

>I believe there is a dichotomy here between lojban & English.  In
>English, saying "John is long" means something like:  "In my experience
>of seeing people, John is a long person."  This implication is *not*
>present in lojban, as far as I can tell from the definitions and what
>I've read so far about the grammer.  I think both you and _and_ are
>mistranslating between tall & <clani>.

I think you are reading "John is long" as "John has length".  That is
not the intended meaning of clani.  Long and short are intended to be
relative measures, but with the exact nature of the relativeness
less unspecified - to be indicated in the standard place.

>>> Would this translate as "John has height."?
>>
>>Not really. A better way to say that would be:
>>
>>        la djan ckaji le ka ke'a sraji mitre
>>        John has the property of being something in vertical meters.
>>
>
>This does not seem a better way. I think
>la djan clani
>means " John has the property/attribute of height." just as
>la djan cerda
>means "John has the property/attribute of being an heir."

Definitely not, since the longest dimension need not be vertical. le
dargu cu clani means that the road is long, and not that it is tall.
But again, it saying something is long does not mean merely that it has
some length.

To put clani in your terms:  John has the property of being relatively
long in some dimension by some standard.

But I don't like trying to turn all gismu places into models of ckaji,
There is nothing special about x1, remember so clani is also.  Height
has the property of being a dimension in which John is long by some
standard.

>>John "having height" does not imply that he is tall. Even the shortest
>>person has height.
>
>Agreed. <clani> is a property of tall people and short people alike.

No. clani is a property of tall people and tordu is a property of short
people.

lojbab