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Re: [jboske] The ugly head of ni



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.




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