Re: semisummary: countability

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

>Lojbab:
>> lo valsi are distributed indivudal members of the set or words.
>
>But must each member be a single word?


>I< would use it that way, but then I am an English native speaker.  I can
imagine that there could be language speakers that might do otherwise.

The distinction seems to be realted to the masss/count noun phenomenon.
If the word were djacu/water and you asked me, I simply could not answer
exactly what one unit of water would be - it could be molecules or it
could be glassfuls, and presumably context would tell us.

In the case of words, it seems less clear that, given a quantifier grea
ter
than or equal to one, and thus suggesting a count noun interpretation, that the

there is any other obvious "unit" than individual words to count.  But I
cannot
rule out such a possibility.

However we have the Lojban word selci, and a convention that lujvo usi
ng it
(as the tertanru modificand) clarifies that we are dealing with the smallest
subunits of the concept in question which display ka broda (
the relevant
properties).  So valsyselci would unquestionably be individual words, and
one could use gunma/girzu/porsi as the tertau to indicate larger units than
individual words.

>I didn't mean to be asking that. My point applies to any brivla
>where delimitation criteria are part of the sense of the word.

YOu mean where English speakers see them as "objects" rather than as mass
nouns?  %^)

It will have to be seen whether something as subtle as this ever breaks
free of our English-dominated spawning of the language.  We would have to
have a language native from a language that has different mass/count noun
groupings or which doesn't have a mass/count distinction in the
basic word meaning, asnd see how such people tackle such things.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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