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On Sat, 12 Oct 2002, Adam Raizen wrote: > > la xod. cusku di'e > > > ni ko'a xunre: the degree to which A is red > > ni ce'u xunre: the degree to which anything is red <-- makes no > sense > > I think that the idea behind ce'u in ni is that it can be used in > place of a ka in selbri which talk about a quantitative relationship, > e.g. 'la djan. zmadu la djordj. le ni [ce'u] clani', and that usage of > ni is probably as common as any (at least, I think I've seen Nick use > ni like that a lot). However, in all these cases, the property is > 'bound', meaning that its presence in that sumti-place and what it's > used for is required by the selbri, so I don't think there's any > reason to use 'ni' in such cases instead of 'ka'. In any case where > 'ni ce'u' might turn out to be useful 'unbound', I would use a > rephrasing. How is that different from "la djan. zmadu la djordj. le ka ce'u clani"? le terzma is the property in which they differ. Using ni and calling it a "quantity" as opposed to a "property" adds no information. If the property can be quantified, then ni is applicable, but if it's not, then the concept is zmadu can't apply to it anyway. I don't understand the significant of 'bound'. Why does the meaning of the tergi'u influence the meaning of ni used in the sumti? > I would likewise rephrase ce'u-less 'ni', so I agree that 'ni' should > be avoided; however, I think that there's a difference between 'ni' > and 'jei'. 'jei', at least for all logical systems I've ever heard of > (not that I'm an expert), has an upper bound which is absolutely true > (and also a lower bound, which is absolutely false). 'ni', on the > other hand, in many circumstances probably chooses from an open-ended > scale, e.g., 'ni vrude' can always be higher (though I think I would > still use 'klani' or 'la'u' for this). [0, 1] contains an infinite number of reals. Inside that interval can be mapped the unique vrude-ness of every atom in the universe. I don't see why restriction to [0, 1] should give one a sense of limitation. -- Before Sept. 11 there was not the present excited talk about a strike on Iraq. There is no evidence of any connection between Iraq and that act of terrorism. Why would that event change the situation? -- Howard Zinn