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xod: > On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, And Rosta wrote: > > > Hopefully we will reserve mass gadri for emergent masses, and continue > > > the process of the erasure of the individual/substance distinction that > > > Lojban started > > > > I don't understand the second half of this sentence. If we look at > > predicates like prenu, then it can be individuated with lo, or > > treated as a substance by loi (or whatever the substance gadri is) > > If lo birja isn't only "a beer", then it would seem that Lojban > > treats birja and prenu differently, the latter being individuable > > and the former not > > Now that we have the benefit of shared terminology, we can get to work > > I want to use lei for collectives. There are no collectivations of > substances -- it's meaningless That's right. But no predicate intrinsically denotes a substance (i.e. uncountable): every predicate is neutral as to countability, and gadri (or similar lexical devices) make the distinction. A quantified/individuals gadri yields a countable interpretation. A substance gadri yields an uncountable interpretation. I think that a collective gadri yields a countable interpretation, but John doesn't think so. > I don't see any difference between le and lei for substances. Taking lei as the collective gadri, as you intend, then both le and lei say "we are not dealing with substances here; we are dealing with countable individuals". So yes, there is no difference between le and lei for substances, but that does not make le djacu nondistinct from lei djacu, because neither refer to substances. > What do you > mean "treated as a substance"? le prenu is one or more people, I didn't > say how many. le djacu is some amount of water, I didn't say how much as a substance: "there was *dog* all over the road", "the nightclub was crawling with *pussy*" (pussy as a metonym and then treated as a Substance), "crockery" "wordage" (as opposed to "a word, words" "beer" (as opposed to "a beer, beers") le djacu is one or more countable amounts of water; it doesn't say how many amounts, or how much is in each amount, but it does say that the amounts are countable. > lei prenu is a collective of people; lei djacu is meaningless, because > water has no emergent, collective properties. (waves and surf are emergent > properties of water *molecules*, I'll grant!) I am assuming in this reply that throughout you are taking lei as a gadri for Collective, right? In this case, lei djacu is not meaningless. First off, you need to find a way to make djacu countable. It might be glasses of water (or some other kind of nonarbitrarily delimited portion of water). In that case, lei djacu would be a collectivity of glasses of water. (Not the glasses themselves; just the water.) > My proposal gives lei an *actual meaning*! Tell me what difference there > is between "a beer" and "some beer", thus justifying why we need a > distinct gadri to mark the difference First off, there is not only a difference between "a beer" and "some beer"; there is also a difference between "an apple" and "(some) apple" and between "a dog" and "(some) dog" and "a pussy" and "(some) pussy". There are some predicates that we *tend* to think of as uncountable, such as "beer", but we can think of them as countable. There are some predicates that we tend to think of as countable, such as "dog" and "pussy", but we can think of them as uncountable. And there are other predicates, such as "apple" and "brick", that can quite normally be thought of in either way. Second, Lojban rightly believes that every predicate is neutral as to countability. The countability is indicated by the gadri: * le/lo forces a countable interpretation * the gadri for Substance forces an uncountable interpretation * IMO, the gadri for Collective forces a countable interpretation I currently have no view about whether loi/lei should express Substance, Collective, or a conflation of the two. But I do think we should have ways of making a distinction between Substance and Collective. > On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, John Cowan wrote: > > Invent Yourself scripsit: > > > My proposal gives lei an *actual meaning*! Tell me what difference > > > there is between "a beer" and "some beer", thus justifying why we > > > need a distinct gadri to mark the difference > > > > Countability. "How many beers [drinks] have you had?" "How many beers > > [vats] are in this cellar?" "How many beers [cans] are in the fridge?" > > All these questions make sense and thus want "xu lo birje" > > > > Where counting does not make sense, then "loi birje" is appropriate > > If counting is not desired, lo is just as good, signifying a quantity of > one piece. lo signifies a quantity of individuable and countable pieces. If you say "lo birje", I should be able to ask you "xo birje", and you should be able to answer -- or at least you shouldn't be stymied by an lack of criteria for counting birje. > Do you want a gadri to mark that counting isn't necessary? I > don't see that distinction as worth marking, Yes, as per what is said above. > not when we have a chance to > solidify the meaning of the mass-gadri, on the way to resolving lo'e. You're jumping the gun. The choices are pretty clear: loi/lei = Collective loi/lei = Substance loi/lei = Conflation of Collective and Substance None of these choices are stupid. The first two are each useful. The third gives backwards compatibility with CLL and usage. > This > is a fairly important issue, and it seems that non-countability is a > relatively minor trait that either never matters, or can be sent to the > selbri in those rare cases that it does matter It could be sent to the selbri by means of using brivla/rafsi meaning "countable unit" and "uncountable amount". But the Loglan design is to make the distinction by means of gadri. --And.