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At 05:03 PM 12/17/02 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
Jorge Llambias scripsit:
> I agree with that last bit. On the other hand, {mi nitcu loi mikce}
> says that there is some fraction of the mass of doctors such
> that I need that fraction. Not what we want.
Au contraire, I think it is exactly what we want (if we can dismiss
the "sundry detached doctor parts" interpretation).
Since everyone loved my "predicate" interpretation of lo'e, let me try another idea, that I don't think has been proposed yet (but who knows):
What if we take the myopic singularization (which may or may not match an extant) doctor), and consider it a metonym for some real doctor. Then "la'e lo'e mikce" should be something that "lo'e mikce" is suggestive of. "la'e loi mikce" probably also works, and allows for the possibility in "I need a doctor" that "I may need a doctor, who may refer me to multiple specialists before all is said and done".
I think that there is a lot of apparatus in the language like "la'e", and "lu'e" that we haven't yet tried to tap in exploring solutions to "how to say it". People might want to consider whether these things could apply to other problems.
lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@hidden.email Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org