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xorxes:
> la and cusku di'e
>
> >How *do* we do "no fraction, su'o fraction, me'i fraction,
> >ro fraction"? How would you it were done, I mean
>
> I suppose this should work: {no lo pisu'o lo broda},
> {su'o lo pisu'o lo broda}, {me'i lo pisu'o lo broda},
> {ro lo pisu'o lo broda}
Fine, setting aside the issue of which dialect we are speaking
9and hence the meaning of the {lo}.
> What do you think of this tentative idea: piQ turns whatever
> it quantifies into Substance. I've been thinking that anything
> that can be fractioned has to be a Substance (leaving aside for
> the moment my interpretation of piQ with collectives)
I think that fraction can be countable or uncountable, just
like everything else (e.g. apple). A specific fraction, such
as a half, is normally countable because by its very definition
it has fixed internal dimensions (defined of course as a fraction
of the whole). A nonspecific fraction, such as "portion of",
is normally uncountable. But we can easily have countable
portions, and at a stretch we can have uncountable specific
fractions -- "the bowl contained apple-half".
I think this means that, in Academic Lojban at least, we're
better off using mei or si'e than pi for fractions. We then
get the following:
(tu'o) lo (tu'o) re si'e be pa plise
"the bowl contained *apple-half*"
pa lo re si'e be pa plise
"The bowl contained *half an apple*"
(tu'o) lo (tu'o) za'u si'e be pa plise
"The bowl contained *apple-portion*"
pa lo za'u si'e be pa plise
"The bowl contained *a portion of an apple*"
The problem with using piQ is that after lo it functions as
inner PA, when we actually want it to function as selbri.
I may be wrong, but you want "ro lo pisu'o" to mean "every
fraction", but "ro lo re" does not mean "every twosome".
"pi mu lo pi mu lo plise" would make sense, meaning "a
quarter of an apple", but I would prefer to use si'e.
> This might allow us to keep lei/loi for both Collective and
> Substance: with inner quantifier it is Collective, but with
> outer piQ it is Substance because only substances can be so
> quantified. (I can't see what difference could there be between
> {piro lo tu'o remna} and {piro loi tu'o remna} though.)
I prefer to say that everything can be treated as countable
(nonsubstance) or uncountable (substance), however much of an
imaginative leap is required to do so in some cases.
--And.