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la pycyn. cusku di'e
> > 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.
> >>
> The beginning sounds right as a practical use, because it is easy to
see how
> to measure the amount of tallness and so to translate around: {la
djan. zmadu
> la djordj. le ni [ce'u] clani} amounts to {le ni la djan clani kei
zmadu le
> ni la djordj clani} and can be pulled out (somehow) to saying that
John is
> 5'10" and George is 5'8" (say). It is less easy to do with, say,
{xunre}
> where appropriate units are not obvious -- or agreed upon. But it
ought to
> work the same way. And that way is different from the way that {ka}
works.
> {ka} gives the property itself, not the degree to which it applies
to an
> object. To be sure, there can't be an amount of applying without a
property
> and presumably (given Lojban grammar) every property applies to
every object
> to some degree. But that does not make a property and its degree of
> application the same thing.
No, but we can easily tell whether it is a matter of a property or its
degree of application (if I understand what you mean by that) based on
the selbri; some require a simple property, and others require a
quantification.
> I don't get the notion of bound and unbound -- what property is
meant and
> what sumti place is it required in. In the examples, no property
occurs in
> any sumti place (in any familiar sense of those words) nor is the
occurrence
> required, although I suppose that some abstraction is required at
the third
> palce of {zmadu}.
A property is indeed required in the x3 of zmadu, at least as I
understand it, and using 'ni' instead of 'ka' to introduce that
property doesn't change anything.
> But then just about every occurrence of any abstraction
> would be "bound" in that sense, except those in which the place is
> unspecified -- a "normal" predicate rather than one just for
abstractions.
> And so few normal predicates apply to abstractions that this is
bound to be a
> rare occurrence.
The vast majority of actual uses of properties are 'bound' in this
sense, but there has been some use & experimentation of 'unbound'
properties (e.g. 'mi nelci le ka ce'u prami', 'I like Love/Loving',
since 'nelci' certainly doesn't require any abstraction in x2, this is
an 'unbound' use.)
> <<
> I would likewise rephrase ce'u-less 'ni', so I agree that 'ni'
should
> be avoided;
> >>
> How would the rephrasing go? What long expression is going to catch
the
> meaning of the short one here?
I might use 'le se klani be le du'u/nu <bridi>', or something similar.
> Never having seen {la'u} in operation and not getting much from the
official
> definition, I don't quite see how this will work. Roughly, I'd
guess, {ky ni
> ko'a broda} would be the same as {ky klani fi le si'o ko'a broda}
(or maybe
> {le du'u/nu ko'a broda cu klani ky}) and then {ko'a broda la'u ky},
which
> seems a little different, coming down more on the fact that that koa
broda
> occurs than on the degree to which it occurs.
I use klani as 'x1 is something quantifiable, and its quantity is x2'.
I haven't though about how to use the x3 of 'klani'. Given your
example sentence, I would say 'le du'u/nu ko'a broda cu klani ky' and
'ko'a broda sela'u ky', but if you wanted to rephrase 'le ni ko'a
broda' instead (which is probably more common), I would say 'le
jaisela'u nu/du'u ko'a broda'.
> But the {ni}/ {jei} distinction is welcomed.
Actually, thinking about it some more, I might not avoid 'ni', since I
think it is more general of the two among 'ni' and 'jei'. I would do
'jei' as 'nilje'u' (ni jetnu).
mu'o mi'e .adam.