Re: masses (the last one should have been dialectology)

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

pc:
> But I doubt that anyone hunts -- in the kalte sense -- lo'e cinfo.  For
> one thing, there is no such individual. A person who is hunting a
> lion will be happy with anyone he happens to get.

Right, but there is no such individual as "the lion being hunted by
that person", either.

> And a lion hunter (cinfo kalte) may not even be trying at the moment.

Right. But that's a job for the aspect:

        la djan ca ca'o kalte lo'e cinfo
        John is now hunting lions.
        John is now lion-hunting.

If you say {la djan cu cinfo kalte}, I may want to know {la djan cu
cinfo kalte ma}, what is he lion-hunting? So using the tanru is not
really a solution.

> x2 of
> kalte is opaque, but probably _lo'e cinfo_ is an automatic
> projection (unless it has to be a typical lion of the intentional
> world, not of this one).

I'm not sure what's a typical lion of the intentional world,
but I think that {lo'e cinfo} is not {lo fadni be le ka cinfo} =
"a typical holder of the property of being a lion". {lo'e cinfo}
is really a place filler that avoids having to instantiate with a
value from the real world.


> but English (and most other languages where the distinction makes sense)
> allow massification of just about any substantive (at least):
> container/content structures ("ten pounds of cat," "twelve head of cat,"
> volume images ("an acre of cat"), rejection of direct numeration (see the
> above examples), and the rest and, so far as I can tell, so does Lojban.

I would say those are:

        loi mlatu poi bunda li pano
        A mass of cats that weighs 10 pounds.

        loi mlatu poi paremei
        A mass of cats that is a twelve-some.

        loi mlatu poi kramu
        A mass of cats that extends for an acre.

Notice that this requires that {loi mlatu} be not the mass of all
cats, but rather a mass of some cats, or equivalently some mass of cats.
Also, none of these use the equivalent to the English "of cat", so that
we don't have to use in Lojban a sumti equivalent to that "cat".

> Scoop a measure of water out of a pond and you have two (slightly
> different) measures of water,

Undoubtedly.

> cut a natural measure of cat in two and you
> have two measures of cat,

Really???? But is a measure of cat a mlatu? Because any measure of
water is a djacu, but is a cat's ear really a mlatu? I can say:

        le xadba be le vi djacu cu djacu
        Half of this quantity of water is a quantity of water.

But can I say:

        le xadba be le vi mlatu cu mlatu
        Half of this cat is a cat.

I don't think that makes much sense, or I don't know what is mlatu.

> though neither a "natural" measure any more
> (well, depending on how you make the cut).

But there is a difference. {djacu} means "x1 is a quantity of water",
but {mlatu} does not mean "x1 is a quantity of cat". {pa djacu} can
be separated into many {pa djacu}. {pa mlatu} cannot be separated into
many {pa mlatu}.

> Lojban has not messed with
> this format nearly as much as TLI Loglan once did, but it has been an
> undercurrent in some discussions of _loi_.  (It was, by the way, part of
> the original source of the _pi_ quantifiers, as I recall it).

I know this has been an undercurrent, but I never understood it, since
it doesn't seem to have much to do with lei/loi, but rather with
the definition of the gismu.

Jorge