Re: Dvorak (& Lojban)

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>]

On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS wrote:

> cu'u la kris
>  > Or I suppose you could even use
> >different te clani when making pseudo-mathematical comparison between

> But I have no problem in using {ka/ni clani} like that! As long as it is
> clear
> that you are being pseudo-mathematical. To say that something is twice
> as clani as something else, you need that both things be clani, and you
> don't need that one have twice the length of the other.

OK.  I tend to lose track of what positions we started with in these
long threads...

> > "ni clani fi le mitre" ought to be about the
> >same as "mitre",
>
> Here we disagree. For example, a 1 cm object is mitre be li pinopa,
> but it is not clani fi le mitre (it is not long with respect to a 1m thing).
> Why would you say that something that is not long with respect to
> a 1m thing has some amount of being long with respect to the 1m thing.

With ka the terclani may be used for strict longer/shorter comparison, but
with ni I would think it should be used as "1.0" on a real-valued scale.
"ka clani le mitre" means "Whether it's longer than a meter", and "ni
clani le mitre" means "How long it is, compared to a meter".

In English, and I presume most or maybe all other natlangs, we have this
regular way of transforming a binary statement about a quality into a
quantitative one.  "Whether he is tall" -> "How tall he is"  "Whether he
is smart" -> "how smart he is"  "Whether he is inept" -> "how inept he
is".  The latter can interpreted quantitatively when it makes sense (as
with tallness), or by comparison or example when numbers are too hard to
assign (as with ineptitude).  This seems sensible to me, it could be a
useful interpretation of the ka/ni distinction.  "ka" = whether, "ni" =
how/to what degree.

My computer screen can appear "a little too blue" without me actually
classifying any of the colors on it as "blue".  This parallels your
example and is exactly how the reference grammar explains the difference
between ka blanu and ni blanu.  Is it wrong to use ni blanu to refer to
intensity of blue light in a color mix, when the mix itself isn't blue?  I
can't think of a better use for "ni", and I can't think of any
contradiction or inelegancy that would come from using it this way.

Chris