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RE: [jboske] mei, latest cause celebre



John:
> And Rosta scripsit:
>
> > In another message I'm sending out, I suggest that a lojbanmass
> > is "substance or collective", which makes sense of CLL, I think
>
> I agree 100%, provided you also accept the corresponding def. of
> "lojbanindividual", which is "natural individual or portion of substance"
> (and I think this is in fact uncontroversial)

Yes and no. If djacu is perforce what you are calling 'substance'
then certainly lo djacu is a countable amount of substance. But,
following xod's lead we have defined 'Substance' as uncountable
(and I can't remember whether absence of constituent members, i.e.
noncollectiveness was part of the definition). So by our special
definition of Substance, lo never 'refers' to a substance, while
loi never refers to a countable individual.

> On my view, it's selbri-specific (and some selbri may be vague on this
> point) whether "lo broda" means "a broda" and "loi broda" means "brodas
> collectively", or "lo broda" means "a portion of broda" and "loi broda"
> means "the broda substance".  (I am neglecting quantifiers here.)

I agree that the mappings to English might be somewhat imprecise,
but lo does countables and loi does noncountables.

The fact that loi broda can mean "the broda substance" means that it
cannot mean specifically "brodas collectively" -- it always has a more inclusive
meaning.

We seem to be in agreement on this.

--And.