quick comment on {loi}

[bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU]

[I'll be busy again for a while and somewhat out of touch.]

Someone recently spoke of {loi mlatu} as a whole mass of cats.
In so far as {loi} is derived from JCB's `lo', it better to think of
{loi mlatu} as a *single* manifestation of a cat.

When you speak Lojban as an object oriented programmer, you could use
{loi} for an instance of a class.  Usually `an instance' is considered
singular, although, of course you can have many instances.  (I have
three instances of class Window on my screen right now.)

Hence,

    .i loi mlatu pu mo'u citka loi finpe

Means something like `Mr. Cat ate Mr. fish', or `a cat ate fish' or
`the cat ate the fish' or `the cat ate some fish'.  (Whether to use
`the' and `a' in the translation is are determined by context, as with
some natural languages.)

In the `sumti' paper, John Cowan translates {loi} as `part of the mass
of those which really are'.  This is wordy, but may be the least
problematic formula.  This gives a translation as:

    Part of the mass of those which really are cats <past>
    <completitive> eat part of the mass of those which really are
    fish.

(`Which' is here being used restrictively, they way `that' is often
used; people often use `which' non-restrictively, but that is not the
case here.)