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Re: ka/ni kama
>>
>>2a does seem to be sumti raising, in that if you replaced "le ni ...
>>by its numerical value, you would be saying that you are fond of a number.
>
>Yes, if {ni} has the number meaning.
I think it should.
>>Probably it is a sumti-raising from
>>mi nelci le ka/ni le ni la meris cu ninmu cu zmadu leni lo'e ninmu cu
>ninmu"
>
>Why zmadu? Maybe mleca. It doesn't say that the degree to which
>--More--
>Mary is a woman is great or small.
Umm, I guess this time it was me relying too much on the E-trans.
I like the amount that Mary is womanly has an implicature of a greater degree,
but whther it is greater or lesser depends both on the scale and what it is you
prefer.
The likely meaning is more like le ni la meris. simsa le'e prane ninmu
the amount that Mary approaches the ideal of womanhood. Phrased this way, one
would expect a smaller number to indicate closer to perfection. But then
maybe using the other kind of scale, Barbie dolls are some kind ofsuperwoman
that no real woman can actually achieve %^).
>It would be sumti raising from {mi nelci le nu makau du le ni
>la meris cu ninmu}: "I like what is the amount of Mary being a woman."
>(Although Lee says that you'd be saying that you like the dimensioned
>amount itself. I respond to that in my reply to him.)
I see what Lee is saying. I think you need that second order abstraction
- you are fond of the amount of womanliness of Mary being something (with the
exact nature of that something being the sumti-raising you complained about).
> >I do not see why 2b and 2c cannot be replaced by a number, provided that
>one
>>can figure out an appropriate scale.
>
>Because {cenba li ci} doesn't mean anything. {lo se cenba} has
>to be a property, not a number.
Not according to my gismu list - it is a ka or ni abstraction just as the x3
of zmadu/mleca is.
I suspect that some other abstractors could work there also in special cases.
> >>But the problem is that very often {ni} is used in the indirect question
>>>mode without tu'a marking, even in refgram examples.
>>
>>I think you are uncomfortable with the idea of something having a
>quantitative
>>measurement when no scale for such quantification has been defined.
>
>Not at all. If you look at my examples, none of them had an explicit
>--More--
>scale defined. That's why I made the point that if {ni} were to have
>the number meaning, it would be a number in the Lojban sense, i.e.
>any PA, not just ordinary numbers. I couldn't think of any example
>where ni would give an ordinary number. It's always things like
>{li piso'i} = "a lot", {li rau} = "enough", etc.
The x1 place of ni is indeed a pure number. The measurement unit is contained
in the scale which is the x2 place of a ni abstraction (I may have said x3 in a
previous post by mistake).
Lojban does measurement units with two places - one a pure number, and the other
either the thing being measured with the units being the selbri, or the
other sumti is the units with a scale place intended to cojntan the units.
(e.g. merli with number in x3 and units in x4).
>>I think you are uncomfortable with the idea of something having a
>quantitative
>>measurement when no scale for such quantification has been defined.
>
>Not at all. If you look at my examples, none of them had an explicit
>--More--
>scale defined. That's why I made the point that if {ni} were to have
>the number meaning, it would be a number in the Lojban sense, i.e.
>any PA, not just ordinary numbers. I couldn't think of any example
>where ni would give an ordinary number. It's always things like
>{li piso'i} = "a lot", {li rau} = "enough", etc.
These don't have explicit scales, but they do have an implicit one.
> >Maybe that solves the previous problem. Surely
>>na ka lemi speni cu nakni
>>just as
>>lemi speni cu na nakni
>
>If you change ka to nu I may agree. With ka I don't understand it.
With either nu or ka we have an observative. One can observe events, or one
can observe properties and adduce events/states on the basis of thoise
properties. In the case of womanhood, I think we observe the properties, and
not the
state/event itself. If one looks at a transsexual genetic male, one observes
ka ninmu, which in this case leaves debatable whether one is observing nu ninmu.
>I never talked of numbers. If {jei} is a truth value, then {le jei <bridi>}
>is either TRUE or FALSE, if you're working with binary logic (you
>may prefer to call them "0" and "1", that's not relevant) or it may have
>an intermediate value if you're working with fuzzy logic. In any case,
>that's in the case that {jei} gives a truth value. In most usage {jei}
>is not a truth value, but rather an indirect question. It is often used
>to mean {du'u xukau}.
I don't know about "usage", but the refgrammar discussion of jei states
that in practice it ranges from 0 to 1 for fuzzy logic. It does not define
what value one would use for "true" or "false", but the x1 of a jei
abstraction must be a number in order to suipport the fuzzy logic convention.
jei was specifically invented to support fuzzy truth more than binary truth.
>>>I don't claim any such rule for abstractors. If ni has the number
>>>meaning it can't really be compared with ka. If it has the indirect
>>>question meaning then yes, sometimes it acts just like a ka. In
>>>those cases {le ni <bridi>} is very similar to {le ka <bridi> la'u
>>>makau}.
>>
>>I don't know why the ka is necessary. Why not "makau poi bridi la'u ke'a"?
>
>That would be sumti raising.
sumti raising from what? Where is the hidden abstraction in my phrasing?
(Note that I am not sure we have all that solid a basis for usage of la'u
- I don't even see an example using it in the refgrammar.
lojbab
----
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Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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