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la and cusku di'e
> I think our discussions have proved that at minimum, only 3 gadri are
> indispensable: Group, Kind, Specific.
This and some of And's exc.sols inspired me the following minimalist
fantasy. Those of you who get stressed by these things please
hit the delete key now and disregard this post. It is probably
irrelevant to bpfk business.
Let's start with lo. This gadri will be empty of any and all
meaning. It is there only for the purpose of converting a selbri
to something that the parser will recognize as a sumti. It simply
selects the x1 place of the selbri that follows. No default
quantifiers are assumed inside or out. Using {lo cipni} as
an argument just imbues the place where we use it with the
meaning from x1 of cipni, it doesn't refer to any particular
object.
Now we add le, which is like lo but specific. This time
there is a specific thing (or group of things) we want to talk
about, and we will use the sumti in question (le broda} to
refer it. The thing need not be an actual object in the world,
it may be anything we want to talk about, but it is something
specific we have in mind. The choice of broda is whatever we
think convenient for our audience to identify what we have in
mind. {le cipni} can be used to refer to any object in the world,
but it will of course be used most often when talking about
objects that are birds. "Certain object I have in mind that
I describe as cipni". It may be a bird, a group of birds,
anything at all.
Those are all the gadri we need.
Now we get to numbers. {lo pa broda} is just like {lo broda}
plus the idea of one. {lo pa cipni} is the meaning of the x1
of {cipni pamei} in normal Lojban. It is the singular of the
x1 of cipni. It does not refer to any one bird. Using
{lo pa cipni} in a relationship again just imbues that
argument place with the idea of a singular cipni. {lo re cipni}
is "pair of birds", {lo za'u cipni} is "plurality of birds",
etc.
Similarly for {le pa cipni}, {le re cipni}, {le za'u cipni}.
They refer in each case to single objects I have in mind which
I choose to describe as "one bird" "two birds" "more than one bird".
Usually the single object in question will be a single bird, a pair
of birds (as a single object), a group of birds (as a single
object)respectively. So for example {le za'u cipni cu morna lo pa cukla}
says that the object that I describe as "more than one bird" forms
a pattern corresponding to the idea of "one circle". {le za'u cipni
cu morna lo re cukla} says that the object that I describe as "more
than one bird" forms a pattern corresponding to the idea of "two
circles".
Now, if we want to distribute a property among referents,
we use outer quantifiers: {cino le pa cipni cu vofli ga'u mi}
says that each of thirty objects which I describe (each one)
as "one bird" fly above me. {cino le re cipni} says that
thirty pairs of birds fly above me. Noha put {ro lo danlu}
in his arc: every animal.
Quantifiers on their own serve a special purpose. {PA broda}
is {PA le pa broda} but with a special proviso: the in-mind
set over which we quantify is the set of all the things that
are conventionally deemed to veridically satisfy the predicate
broda. So {ci remna} are three of all the things that are
considered to be single human beings, i.e. the instances of
Mr Human Being that are spatiotemporally continuous in the
appropriate way. In other words, {ci remna} is the same
thing as in normal Lojban.
When we want to talk of stuff that can't be individuated, we
signal that explicitly wit {tu'o}: {lo tu'o djacu} is water,
the stuff. {lo tu'o cipni} is bird, the stuff (perhaps the
filling of some food). {le tu'o cipni} the particular object
I have in mind that I describe as "bird stuff".
{ci le tu'o cipni} are three such objects.
Here are some traditional - minimalist equivalences:
le pa broda - le pa broda
[ro] le ci broda - ci le pa broda
re le ci broda - re lu'a le ci broda
lei broda - le broda
lei ci broda - le ci broda
[ro] le re broda cimei - re le ci broda
[su'o] lo broda - su'o broda
ci broda - ci broda
loi broda - su'o le broda
Some with Kind-lo'e:
lo'e broda - lo broda
lo klesi be lo'e broda - su'o lo broda
ci klesi be lo'e broda - ci lo broda
lo'e broda pamei - lo pa broda
lo'e broda cimei - lo ci broda
I believe this minimalist system based on lo, le and quantifiers
covers everything we need.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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