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la djan cusku di'e
Invent Yourself scripsit: > It depends on what you mean by "mass". In an effort to clarify the > terminology, we pretty much agree to use "mass" to refer to the > mass-gadri, and to use "collective" and "substance" for the two distinct> concepts which have been mistakenly blurred together as the meaning of the> mass-gadri. Ah. But I absolutely disagree that that was a mistake. It is the very essence of Lo??anic thinking about masses that Water, piro lei djacu, is exactly the same as Monkey, piro lei smani. They are not arbitrarily divided into "substance" and "collective" based on English/SAE thinking.
I agree that {lei} applies equally well to concepts that in English
are handled by "mass nouns" and to concepts that in English are
handled by "count nouns". But for each such concept, on both
camps, we have a "collective" meaning and a "substance" meaning
which often are different, and xod is arguing (and I agree)
that the collective meaning is the one we want for {lei}.
If you can say "There is rice scattered over the floor", you can equally well say "There is sailor scattered over the deck", pisu'o loi blosazri.
Yes, but hopefully with the collective meaning = "there are
sailors scattered over the deck" and not with the substance
meaning "there is sailor goo scattered over the deck".
If you divide {pa rismi} in many parts, you normally end up
with {so'i rismi} (assuming you started with a big enough
{pa rismi}. But if you divide {pa nanmu} in many parts,
you don't end up with {so'i nanmu}, no matter how big the
pa nanmu was. In that sense, there can be said to be a
class of brodas such that when you divide pa broda you end
up with so'i broda, and other brodas for which you don't.
But that's like saying that there is a class of brodas
such that when you melt lo broda you still have broda and
other brodas for which you don't. That kind of property is
part of the meaning of broda, not something to be handled by
gadri, in my opinion.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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