Lojban In General

Posted by stevo on Mon 16 of Jun, 2008 06:01 GMT posts: 381

I was looking at the Lojban Wikipedia yesterday, and I noticed some
inconsistency in usage of the word "ratni".

How should one say, e.g., "Hydrogen is element number 1"?

The definition of "ratni" is
x1 is an atom of element/atomic number x2 of isotope number/atomic weight x3

It seems to me that both "hydrogen" and "number one" go in x2.

Is this right?
le cidro cu ratni li pa
le cidro cu se ratni li pa
le cidro pe li pa cu se ratni

stevo

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Posted by spheniscine on Mon 16 of Jun, 2008 06:01 GMT posts: 10

I think x2 can be either a number (li pa) or the "property" of being a
particular element (lo ka cidro).

Posted by skaryzgik on Mon 16 of Jun, 2008 06:01 GMT posts: 5

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 3:13 PM, Brett Williams <mungojelly@gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> It probably expresses a much more specific sentiment than it was
> intending; it's only talking about some particular atom.
>
>

Or atoms. You don't know it means singular unless they say {pa} or something
of similar effect.

mu'omi'e .skaryzgik.

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On 5/5/08, Penguino <spheniscine@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think x2 can be either a number (li pa) or the "property" of being a
> particular element (lo ka cidro).
>

ie i mi tugni

The first place seems to be a physical object, an atom, and the other two
places are abstract properties which that atom has. The first and only
place of "cidro" is a physical object, one or more atoms of hydrogen, a
quantity of hydrogen. So I think it's most appropriate to put a cidro in
the first place of "ratni":

lo cidro cu ratni li pa — Some quantity of hydrogen is an atom whose atomic
number is one.

Stevo's three examples:

"le cidro cu ratni li pa" — that makes sense. The first place is an atom,
which is described by the word "cidro". Its atomic number is one, as you'd
expect. It probably expresses a much more specific sentiment than it was
intending; it's only talking about some particular atom.

"le cidro cu se ratni li pa" — that does not make sense. The first place
is an atomic number, described by the word "cidro"-- that makes sense
enough; pretty much another way of saying "one". The second place is an
atom, though, which is specified to be the *number* one. Numbers are not
atoms.

"le cidro pe li pa cu se ratni" — this sort of makes sense, but doesn't
seem very ordinary to say. It's saying: I'm going to describe something by
saying "cidro", and so you know which "cidro" I mean, I'll tell you it's
associated with the number one. OK got that?-- Now I'll tell you: It's an
atomic number. That seems like a puzzle of a sentence to say something so
simple.

What occurs to me to say myself to express the sentiment I think we're
getting at is:

lo'e ratni poi cidro cu ratni li pa
The typical atom which is hydrogen is an atom with atomic number one.
Hydrogen atoms have an atomic number of one.

It looks redundant on the face of it to say "ratni" twice, but I think a lot
of clearly spoken Lojban looks redundant, yet isn't. Lojban provides clear
contexts for words, which can make them unexpectedly repeatedly useful.
(Mu'a, dbrock said "lo drata drata" yesterday and it was very clarifying!)

mu'o mi'e .bret.