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John: > Invent Yourself scripsit: > > What I am really > > saying here though, which nobody is addressing, is that we should reserve > > mass-gadri for collectives. And disambiguate collectives from substances, > > because they are very different things > > I don't agree that they are different, much less very different. I think > this view (which you hold) is just as much a Whorfian mind-lock as the > view (which you don't hold) that an individual != a quantity of a substance > > The "Creatures of Lo[i]" view is that when water (which is a portion of Water) > flows over a dam, this is the same situation as when monkey (which is > a portion of Monkey) falls out of a tree All sorts of issues are being mixed up here: 1. Which distinct notions is Lojban to be able to express? 2. Which conflated notions is Lojban to be able to express? 3. Which of these notions does a speaker choose to emply to describe a given thing? Xod addresses (1). You answer by making a point about (3). The one I care about is (1). We don't really have to bother with (3); I am perfectly happy for a Lojbanist to say that the mass of all monkey(s) falls from a tree. But I want to be able to treat Substance and Collective distinctly. --And.