BPFK Section: Inexact Numbers
wrote:
>
> pc:
> > accuracy: saying clearly what is actually
> going
> > on. If, as now, you are proposing changes
> > (either new or precising previous vagueness
> or
> > ambiguity) a clear statemtn of what the
> change is
> > and some explanation of why a change is
> necessary
> > and why this particular change is the way to
> go
> > ("widespread usage" is not much help unless
> it
> > also says why the users have chosen this
> deviance
> > — especially true when the usage is largely
> that
> > of the proposer). But problems which do need
> to
> > be met count for something.
>
> I don't think I'm proposing any changes here.
Sorry, I was off thinking about the gadrii page
not the actual topic of this thread.
> This is what
> CLL says:
>
> Each of these numbers, plus ro, may be
> prefixed with pi (the decimal
> point) in order to make a fractional form which
> represents part of a whole
> rather than some elements of a totality.
> piro therefore means ''the whole
> of'':
>
>
> 8.8) mi citka piro lei nanba
> I eat the-whole-of the-mass-of bread
>
> Similarly, piso'a means ''almost the whole
> of''; and so on down to
> piso'u, a tiny part of. These numbers
> are particularly appropriate with
> masses, which are usually measured rather than
> counted, as Example 8.8 shows.
>
> I don't think what I'm proposing deviates from
> that.
>
> > clarity: at least avoiding vagueness and
> > ambiguity, being as precise as possible and
> > appropriate. An unemotional expression is
> often
> > useful as well.
>
> piPA sumti = lo piPA si'e be lo pa me
> sumti
>
> seems clear enough to me. "A piPA fraction of
> one of the
> referents of sumti". When sumti has a
> single referent,
> this reduces to the CLL case: "A piPA fraction
> of the
> referent of sumti.
I know that CLL says that {piPA lo broda} is 0.PA
of one broda. This is, however, at variance with
what it says elsewhere about fractional
quantifiers and with practivcal considerations
(what do we most want to say and what can be said
appropriately otherwise). It is also at variance
with what was (I thought) agreed on here earlier
(much earlier, to be sure) ion response to the
rather thorough muddle about quantified sumti in
CLL, that fractionals gave fractions of the total
size, not fractions of the members: external PA
was to understood, then, as PA/ro. To be sure,
this assumes that lo broda is a group, but then
no one has yet even begun to say how it could be
otherwise, given Lojban's defective plural
structure. (Incidentally, even if {lo broda} were
a plural, {pimu lo broda} would "naturally" be
"half the men" not "a half of a man.")
> > noncontroversial: if a change presupposes
> some
> > other changes, they should be dealt with as
> well,
> > so that each section begins pretty much from
> the
> > basics (CLL in this case).
>
> I wouldn't have thought this was going to be
> controversial.
> It is not even really a change, just a
> generalization of CLL.
Well, I suppose we could ask why this
generalization rather than any of several others,
including the earlier consensus. That section of
CLL is a bit of a mess, after all, and many of
the choices there are ill-advised from a
practical point of view.
> > coherence: the various parts should fit
> together
> > without internal contradiction or
> garden-pathing.
>
> All parts fit together as far as I can tell.
> You claim they
> don't, but you don't explain how they don't.
As noted, the claim was accidentlaly about
something else that was on my mind at the time.
This system seems to be coherent, if inefficient.
I expect that we want to talk about half a group
of (or several) broda far more often than about
half a broda. The standard way to say half a
broda otherwise is not much more complex that
{pimu lo broda}, while, lacking this form, saying
"half of the broda" seems rather harder --
certainly more so that its usefulnness suggests.
But then, I am not all that confident about ewhat
is possible by way of expressing these notions,
so I have probably missed a correcting set.