Re: abstractor place structures

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

Lojbab:
>>>>>But I would prefernot to stretch klani/ni to be used
>>>>>for counts of objects.
>>>>How do you interpret the "enumerated by x2" bit in the gi'uste
>>>>definition of klani?
>>>I was  specifically pointing to the x2 be a number/quantifier.
 >>Then why do you say that it is stretching it to use klani for number
>>of things?
> Because I am not sure that everyone (including me when I am caught up
>on sleep and rational) accepts that klani with any scale is equivalent to
>kancu with no counter.

Then I don't understand what you mean by "enumerated".

 > To my mind,  a count without a counter
>is more or less meaningless.

If you put it like that, of course. You're just playing with English
words. "Count" and "counter" are obviously from the same root.
But there are cardinalities that cannot be counted. And we often
talk of number of things without implying that anyone ever
counted them.

> Coujnting is the placing of  objects in one
>to one correspondence with some kind fo numbering scheme.
>The numbering
>scheme is artificial, and that implies an artificer to choose and apply the
>numbering scheme to the counting process.

Are you saying that you can't talk of the cardinality of a set
without talking of there being some artificer behind it? Can you
talk about anything at all without an artificer then?

 >>>Maybe I mean anti-ka(le ka mitre) cu gradu %^)
 >>>Or maybe I need an anti-si'o.
>What I mean by these comments is that out of the mass of all events of
>da mitre li pa, we distil an idea or set of properties that constitute the
>concept of "meter".

{le ka ce'u mitre li pa} is the property of being one meter long, yes.

>But a meter is not a set of properties, it is a thing
>that has those properties.

{lo mitre} is a thing that has that property. The meter, in English, is
a unit of length (among other things like the rhythm of a verse), not
the same as {lo mitre}.

>Thus we need to turn the abstraction into a
>non-abstract  which the abstraction applies to.  I don't know if this makes
>any sense or not.

It doesn't make sense to me. You seem to be confusing the two
words {mitre} and "meter", which have related but different
meanings.

 >>But I do, as a language user, need a rational way of creating new
>>measure words with the same place structure as the basic measure
>>words. Regularity of place structures is a plus for language users.
>Fine, butthat regularity may be a convention that is  specific to the
problem to
>be solved and  not necessarily as generalized as the dikyjvo conventions of
>Chapter 12.

"Regularity specific to the problem to be solved" is kind of
contradictory.

>Still and all, many gismu are in the gisdmu list in order to be used in
>lujvo.  I am quite sure that gradu was added specifically to allow the
>creation of new units.  I am not sure that it has much use if it cannot
>be used in such lujvo (specifically, I see no value in a 10**0 metric
>prefix, and if anyone else had, there would already be one in all the
>languages)

Who said anything about it being a metric prefix? {kilto} and kin may
have entered the language by virtue of there being metric prefixes
for them, but once in the language they're gismu just like any other.
And they happen to form a series for which {gradu} fits nicely
in the middle. I never proposed using gradu as a prefix, nor
are we limited to using {kilto} as a prefix. I can't think of English
words equivalent to the Spanish "millar", "centena" and "decena",
which would be translated into Lojban as {kilto}, {xecto} and {dekto}.
The next one, "unidad", would be {gradu}.

>Meanwhile we have a baseline, and changing the place structure is a closed
> topic.

But in this case no place structure is required to change. {klani} already
has the place structure that I want! I'm not asking for changes there.

>Violating the dikyjvo conventions, specifically permitted by the Book,
>is still permitted.  I agree that we want the "violations" as such to be
> conventional in their own way, so as to allow easy creation of new lujvo.
>But I am less wedded than most people to following the existing
>conventions religiously if they do not serve the needs of the community.

I, on the other hand, have no qualms about doing something different
from what's recommended in the Book if I think it's the rational thing
to do. The reference grammar is an excellent work, but not perfect.

co'o mi'e xorxes