[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
la and cusku di'e
X has intrinsic boundaries if, when looking just at X and not X's surroundings, you can tell where X ends. Equivalently, X has intrinsic boundaries if there are criteria for deciding that there are 3 X and not 2 or 4 X. The people who see six or three quantities must be additively applying intrinsic boundaries. The person who sees one quantity may or may not be additively applying intrinsic boundaries; you won't know until you know whether they use a Substance gadri or not.
If there is one and only one X, can there be any difference in it having intrinsic boundaries or not? There is no difference by the second definition because we never need to decide how many X there are. As for telling where something ends, I suppose it is metaphoric. For example, think of waves on the sea. We can with more or less difficulty count them, but we don't really have criteria to say where one ends and the next one begins in a precise way.
> >"Not all metal is solid"
>
> {me'i jinme cu sligu} for the kind of general statement that
> only appears in Logic books, and {lo'e jinme me'iroi sligu}
> for the more relaxed everyday sense
{me'i jinme} is no good if it is equivalent to {me'i lo}, because
it means "me'i countable units", so changes the meaning. The
me'iroi version is okay, but I would like "Not all metal is
solid" to be equivalent to, say, "Not all of the door is painted
black", which does seem to be potentially different from "The door
is not always painted black".
In the case of predicates of the form "x1 is a quantity of ...", would you say that Substance-broda is equivalent to "the largest broda", i.e. "the total quantity of ..."?
My stepping example should not be different from "I painted some of the door. It was smooth." = "I painted a certain fraction of the door". We generally need a way to do "a fraction of" (for all different possible fractions).
Right. Maybe I was wrong about the way piQ work with collectives,
or maybe they have that function with collectives and the fraction
function with other singular terms: {pimu le (pa) vorme} for
"half the door".
I also think that "a fraction of lo-Unique nanmu" is potentially different from "a fraction of lo-Substance (of all) nanmu".
Yes, clearly they are different. Half a man and half of mankind.
Lo-Unique nanmu is a single man, while lo-Substance nanmu is a huge pile of man porridge. "lo-Unique djacu" looks like a single intrinsically bounded amount of water (perhaps a glass of water). "lo-Substance djacu" looks like a a great ocean of water.
Right. {Substance djacu} is the biggest of all djacu. But then
I don't know why you'd want to say that you stepped on it. If
you start to talk about fractions of it, then you fall into
countables again.
Intrinsic boundaries have to be determinable from the inside; you're not allowed to sneak a peek outside to check whether there are other quantities around, or where the non-water begins.
Does "fraction of door" have intrinsic boundaries?
If you see one puddle then it is intrinsically bounded if, had there been another puddle, you'd be seeing two puddles, but not if you'd still be seeing just a single quantity of water.
So "fraction of door" is intrinsically bounded if it is cut off from the door, but not if it is just a part of the door that, say, you are seeing behind a piece of furniture. If it is cut off, then when there is another one we see two fractions, but if we see some more door because the piece of furniture is moved, then we still see a single fraction.
> I probably don't understand the "intrinsic" part Does this message help? I'm not inventing arbitrary criteria; I'm trying to elucidate the notion of countability, which is so familiar from my beloved English.
Yes, I know, and your insights are helpful, but I'm still not sure I see the whole picture. When you say that not all metal is solid, aren't you establishing a boundary between metal that is solid and metal that is not solid?
> >(How do we express
> >fractions like "almost all of"?)
>
> {piji'iro}?
I was thinking {pi da'a}, but what I meant to ask was: How do
we say "I will eat half the apple", and "I ate a certain half
of the apple"?
I guess {mi citka pimu le plise} and mi citka {le pimu le plise}.
But the first one would also probably be {mi citka lo pimu le
plise}, so it would not be Substance. I know, the first one
is: {mi citka lo'e pimu le plise}
Ah: {si'e}. I had forgotten about it. (I don't
know how it works, though.
Neither do I.
What is the difference between
{pi mu mei} and {pi mu si'e}?
I have asked that before.
What does {re si'e} mean? Oh,
I see: {re si'e} is "half". But how do we do "two thirds"?)
The cmavo list seems to say {re si'e} is "half", but CLL
gives {fi'ucisi'e} for "one third".
mu'o mi'e xorxes
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 3 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU=
http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_eliminateviruses_3mf