[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
John: > And Rosta scripsit: > > > If lo birje is a beer but not some beer, then the Lojban distinction > > between lo birja and loi birja (or whatever the substance gadri is > > if not beer) is not vacuous. It isn't vacuous for lo prenu and loi > > prenu, and it would be nice if Lojban did what it claimed to do > > and didn't make a distinction between mass nouns and count nouns, > > so that lo gives a count interpretation and loi gives a mass > > (substance) interpretation > > +1, with the caveat that "lo birje" has a wider range of referents than > "a beer"; it also covers things like "a bottle of beer" and "a keg of > beer" and "a vat of beer". Similarly, "lo rismi" can be "a grain of rice" > or "a serving of rice" or "a pot of rice" Goodo. Yes, totally, to the caveat. I take it that by "a beer" you were thinking specifically of a pint glass of beer or suchlike. So in gismu glosses, "an amount of" means "a nonarbitrarily delimited amount of, such that there are criteria for determining how many such amounts there are". For example, a splash of beer on the table is "lo birja" only if I am in principle prepared to say how many of these birja there are (i.e. I have to be able to tell the difference between one splash and two). Great stuff. I actually learnt something new about Lojban today! --And.