Re: The two lo'es (was: essentials of a gadri system)

John Cowan <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.science.linguistics.lojban.jboske
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Invent Yourself scripsit:

> But is there a divergence between Jorge's lo'e (which means kind, unique,
> and Mister) and the CLL's lo'e (which means "typical", understood
> precisely as the arithmetical mode: the most common type)?

If CLL's "lo'e" were really the mode, or the median, or the mean, it would
be a h'ass, and a h'idiot. But it isn't. Nor is it about (contra an
earlier posting) intrinsicality: there is no saying which properties are
intrinsic, just as there is no saying which are necessary and which
contingent.

Rather, CLL lo'e is about *characteristic* properties. It is characteristic
of lions to live in Africa, to have short intestines, and to eat antelope.

> What if 50% of camels have two humps, and the rest have only one? Does
> lo'e camel have 1.5 humps?

No. (After some research, I find it impossible to nail down the relative
number of humps on camelids -- there seem to be no decent stats about
domesticated animals, which make up the great majority.) lo'e camel
simply wouldn't have a hump count, for the same reason that he/she doesn't
have a gender.

-- 
John Cowan jcowan-k6JZYsoqQQ8PxK1qzZLvrwC/[email protected]
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan http://www.reutershealth.com
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory
that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
--blurb for _Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi_
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