[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
At 03:25 PM 1/6/03 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
la lojbab cusku di'e
>resi'e if meaningful would have the place structure
>x1 is a 2(-some) portion of mass x2
>lo resi'e refers to the x1 of that construct
>pa lo resi'e selects one out of however many such 2-some portions of the
>unstated x2 as may exist.
>
>This is nonsense.
That's not what the straightforward reading of the ma'oste gives.
{zesi'e} from the ma'oste would mean: "x1 is a 7th portion of mass/totality
x2".
There are examples of si'e in combination, as well as the base definition of si'e in the ma'oste. Both were written/designed at the same time.
The idea that one has to use {fi'uze} rather than plain {ze}
in front of {si'e} is probably a later development.
No. If there is ambiguity in the definition, it is the sloppy wording of the definition, which was probably written after the design.
If we are going to use {fi'uze}, it is not clear why we
couldn't just use {mei} with it.
Because there was perceived to be a difference between a -mei and a -si'e, and indeed I see very little in common between them other than that they use a number to define their exact meaning.
The place structures are VERY different. mei is a 3-placer that converts between masses, sets-as-a-unit, and member-lists. I am not sure how you would describe the set/member-lists of pimumei, and there is no way using the place structure of mei to say what the portion is a fraction of (portions relate a subset/submass to a larger set/mass; the cardinal predicate indicates and massifies the cardinality of a set).
(I do note that the cmavo list appears to have errors in that the examples based on mei in the list are defined with the older 2-place structure while the main definition has the 3-place structure that was devised when CLL was written.)
Furthermore, you and And correctly provide the best example of si'e in actual usage. Doing a quick usage scan on si'e, I find only 3 usages. One was an example in the Diagrammed summary, an example from between 1990 and 1992 which used pimusi'e for a half portion. One was a usage I haven't puzzled out because it was in a commented exchange between Colin and Cowan on the list. And the other was a usage by And himself in Round 4, which you correctly back-translated. And didn't use -mei and did use -si'e correctly.
lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@hidden.email Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org