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xorxes:
> la and cusku di'e
>
> > > 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
>
> Is "portion" ever uncountable in English? Aren't "portion
> of", "quantity of", "amount of", etc. ways of making
> countables out of uncountables?
Except in the sense that count nouns can almost always be used
as mass nouns, portion is always count. For an uncountable
portion we say "some of (the door is red)" or "part of (the door
is red)". So English can talk about uncountable portions; it
just doesn't use the word _portion_!
> >But we can easily have countable
> >portions, and at a stretch we can have uncountable specific
> >fractions -- "the bowl contained apple-half"
>
> Hmmm... I'll think some more about this. Probably specific
> fractions and indefinite fractions would work differently
>
> >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*"
>
> I'm never sure about quantified be-complements. What would
> {pa lo re si'e be re plise} mean?
IMO, the same thing is half of each of two apples. Highly
improbable unless you can have Siamese twin apples! But
every mamta be re nanmu has two sons.
For half each of two apples (two halves, one from each apple):
re da poi plise zo'u lo re si'e be da
> >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"
>
> Yes, that's true I suppose. But what other meaning could
> piQ have?
>
> >"pi mu lo pi mu lo plise" would make sense, meaning "a
> >quarter of an apple", but I would prefer to use si'e
>
> If {pimu lo pimu lo plise} is one quarter, then
> {pa lo pimu lo plise} is one half, {re lo pimu lo plise}
> is two halves, {ci lo pimu lo plise} is three halves,
> and {ro lo pimu lo plise} is every half. I'm not sure
> why all the halves should have to be of the same apple
This shouldn't be hard to reason about, but it is.
re lo ci lo plise -- "There are three apples, two of which..."
-- re selects 2 apples from a set of 3 apples.
So {pi mu lo ci lo plise} selects half an apple from a set
of 3 apples.
So {PA lo pi mu lo (ci lo) plise} selects from a set containing
half an apple.
I'm not sure whether the outer PA applies to apples or to
members of the set selected from. The set selected from contains
one member and half an apple. So if PA applies to apples, then
only a PA of 0.5 or less will make sense, while if PA applies
to members of the set selected from then only a PA of 1 or less
will make sense.
If {ci lo pi mu lo plise} meant "three apple halves", then I
don't see why {ci lo re lo plise} wouldn't mean "three apple
pairs".
I must say, these piQ quantifiers seem a load of bollocks to me
at the moment. They're fraction predicates masquerading as
quantifiers.
--And.