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Nick:
> OK, Jorge, you're better at logic than me, I freely admit, so you take
> over
>
> I am clumsily attempting to demonstrate that collective != piroloi
>
> More generally, I am trying to derive collective (and later on,
> substance) from lojbanmass, because in Standard Lojban, lojbanmass is
> the primitive
>
> If this is hopeless, and it is agreed that collective is a separate
> primitive, then ipso facto, gadri. Because we've all been saying
> collectives are a subset of lojbanmass, I think it not hopeless
If you accept my definition of jbomass as something that encompasses
Collective, Substance, and Substance-derived-from-Collective, then
it is quite possible that CLL Lojban has something that means
Collective but is (accurately) labelled by the more inclusive term
'jbomass'. {mei} seems such a thing. {pa lo re mei} is a countable
collective, a single pair. {loi su'o mei} is a jbomass of collective,
one or more collectives treated as Substance.
If it were possible to kill the piQ before lei, then leiza'u would
probably give you an uncountable collective ("*People* crowded the
streets. They clamoured for justice."). I don't know of any way of
killing the piQ, though. I can't think how to get a nonspecific
uncountable collective -- all ideas I have had turned out to fail.
--And.