History: Lojban Tutorial: Lesson 4

Source of version: 3 (current)

!Lesson 4: Numbers, and a few more articles
One of the first things you learn in a new language is how to count, and
this course is no exception. However, in Lojban, numbers include much
more than just counting; for example, in Lojban, "some", "many" and
"most" are numbers.


!!Basic numbers
The numbers from one to nine are as follows:

# ''__pa''__
# ''__re''__
# ''__ci''__
# ''__vo''__
# ''__mu''__
# ''__xa''__
# ''__ze''__
# ''__bi''__
# ''__so''__

This leaves zero, which is ''__no''__ (think "yes, we have no bananas").
You may have noticed that the numbers repeat the vowels AEIOU. Since you
can't get by without memorising numbers, try to think of mnemonics for the
unfamiliar ones. For example, although the sound is different, ''__xa''__
has the X of "six", and I remembered ''__so''__ by thinking of the proverb
"A stitch in time saves __nine__," which is about __sew__ing (''__.oi''__).

Numbers from 10 onwards are made by putting the digits together, just like
you'd say a telephone number. For example:

;''__pano''__:10
;''__zebi''__:78
;''__xanoci''__:603
;''__vomusore''__:4,592

4,592 has a comma in it (or a full stop in some languages, just to make
things confusing). We can't use a comma in Lojban, because that means
"separate these two syllables" (as we saw in Lesson 1 with Lojbanised names
like ''__zo,is.''__ for "Zoe"). What we say instead is ''__ki'o''__. We
don't __have__ to use ''__ki'o''__, but it can make things clearer. It also
has the advantage that if the following digits are all zeroes, we don't
need to say them, so 3,000 is ''__ci ki'o''__. You can remember
''__ki'o''__ easily if you think of "kilo"~--~a thousand.

Just as we have a word for a comma, we also have one for a decimal point:
''__pi''__ (don't get this mixed up with the number "pi" - 3.1415... !). So
5.3 is ''__mupici''__. In fact, ''__pi''__ is not always decimal~--~it's
the point for whatever system you're using.

__Question:__ What is the difference between the following numbers?

''__pareci''__

''__li pa li re li ci''__

The first one, as we've seen, has to be "one hundred and twenty-three," so
the second is "one, two, three." ''__li''__ is the article for numbers.

!!!Exercise 1
What are the following numbers in Lojban? (don't forget ''__li''__!)

# 35
# 4,802
# 6,000
# 7.54
# 6,891,573.905

!!Numbers and articles

So far, we've looked at three articles: ''__la''__, for ''__cmene''__,
''__le''__, for ''__sumti''__ and ''__li''__ for numbers. So ''__li bi''__
is "the number eight." Actually, outside mathematics, ''__li''__ is not
used very much. What we usually want to say is things like "three people,"
or "the two women."

__Note for mathematicians:__ Lojban has a number of words to deal with
basic mathematics, and also an incredible number of words to deal with just
about any mathematical expression you can think of in a separate subset of
the language. But come on guys, this is a beginners' course.

We can use numbers either before or after ''__le''__. For example,

;''__ci le gerku''__:means "three of the dogs", while
;''__le ci gerku''__:means "the three dogs."

What do we do, though, if we just want to say "three dogs"? For this we
need another article, ''__lo''__. The logic of ''__lo''__ is pretty
complicated, but it basically means "something which really is," which nine
times out of ten is the same as English "a" or "some" (translating Lojban
grammar into English like this is a mortal sin, but even so, this is the
best thing to do with ''__lo''__ at this stage!).

__Note for logicians:__ ''__lo prenu cu klama''__ expresses the proposition
"There exists at least one person, such that that person goes."

''__ci lo gerku''__ therefore means "three of those which really are dogs",
or in plain words, "three dogs". ''__lo ci gerku''__, however, means that
there are only three dogs in the world, which is not something you'd really
want to say (mathematicians and logicians can look up the relevant parts of
''__The Complete Lojban Language''__ if they want clarification on this
issue).

Let us now consider the English sentence "Three dogs bit me." This actually
has two possible meanings. The one we would expect is that I was attacked
by a pack of dogs, and all of them bit me. However, I could be an extremely
unfortunate person who was bitten by three separate dogs on three different
occasions. Lojban is a logical language, and so does not tolerate this
confusion! If I say ''__ci lo gerku cu batci mi''__, I just mean that three
dogs bite me. Maybe one dog bit me in the morning, one in the afternoon,
and one at night, or maybe I mean that I have been bitten by a dog three
times in my life. However, if I say ''lu'o'' ''__ci lo gerku cu batci mi''__, I mean that a __group__ of three dogs bit me. ''__lu'o''__ means
"the mass composed of" and in effect converts a bunch of individuals into a
coherent unit. If you're a fan of computer strategy games, think of
''__lu'o''__ as like the "group" command for units (there's also an
"ungroup" command, ''__lu'a''__).

With ''__le''__ things are simpler. While ''__le pano ninmu''__ means "the
ten women", ''____lei__ pano ninmu''__ means "the ten women treated as a
group or mass". Let's imagine that ten women I have in mind kiss me on ten
separate occasions. I could then say ''__le pano ninmu cu cinba mi''__, in
which case I'd consider myself quite fortunate. However, if I say
''____lei__ pano ninmu cu cinba mi''__, I mean that the ten women kiss me
''__en masse''__, in which case I would consider myself either blessed or
harassed (maybe I'm a rock star or something). However, it does not
necessarily mean that each and every woman kisses me, simply that I was
mobbed by a group of ten women and kissed by one or (probably) more in the
process.

!!Proportions

__Warning: __this section gets into some tricky logical stuff. Skip it if
you're not interested.

__Question: __If ''__le ci prenu''__ means "the three people," and ''__re le prenu''__ means "two of the people, how do you say "two of the three
people"?

You probably go this one pretty easily: ''__re le ci prenu''__. If,
however, we use ''__lo''__, the meaning changes. We can't say ''__re lo ci prenu''__ to mean two out of __any__ three people (i.e. two thirds of the
population). This is because while ''__le ci prenu''__ means the three
people that I have in mind, by the same logic, ''__lo ci prenu''__ means
the three people that actually exist, i.e. that there are only three people
in the universe. You would therefore only use the number+''__lo''__+number
formula if you knew the actual numbers rather than just the proportions,
e.g.


''__re lo mi ci mensi cu nelci la rikis.martin.''__

''__Two of my three sisters like Ricky Martin.''__

This states two facts: that I have three sisters (not actually true!) and
that two of them like Ricky Martin (it doesn't actually state that my third sister __hates__ him~--~she may be indifferent to him, or never have heard
of him). If I use ''__le''__ in the same sentence, it isn't actually wrong,
but it allows the possibility that I have, say, five sisters, but I'm only
talking about three of them! This is one of the few areas where ''__le''__
and ''__lo''__ are __not__ like "the" and "a/some".

One way out of this is to use ''__fi'u''__, which is like the Lojban slash
sign. So "two out of every three people" is really "2/3 of people", or
''__refi'uci lo prenu''__

!!Quantities

I've said that words like "most" and "many" are numbers in Lojban, which is
pretty logical if you think about it. The following "numbers" are
particularly useful:

;''__no''__:none (we've already seen this as "zero")
;''__ro''__:each / all
;''__so'a''__:almost all
;''__so'e''__:most
;''__so'i''__:many / a lot of
;''__so'o''__:several
;''__so'u''__:few
;''__su'e''__:at most
;''__su'o''__:at least

Some examples:

;''__no le ninmu cu nelci la bil.''__:None of the women like Bill.
;''__no lo ninmu cu nelci la bil.''__:No women like Bill. [[because ''__lo ninmu''_ potentially includes all women that exist]
;''__coi rodo''__:Hi, everyone
;''__mi nelci ro lo mlatu''__:I like all cats.
;''__mi na nelci ro lo gerku''__:It's not true that I like all dogs. (this is __not__ the same as "I don't like any dogs", which would be ''__mi nelci no lo gerku''__ or ''__mi __na'e__ nelci rolo gerku''__~--~"I other-than-like all dogs")
;''__so'i lo merko cu nelci la nirvanas.''__:Many Americans like Nirvana (the
group, not the mystical state).
;''__so'u lo jungo cu nelci la nirvanas.''__:Few Chinese people like Nirvana.
;''__su'e mu le muno prenu cu cmila''__:No more than five out of the fifty people laugh(ed) (let's say a comedian told a bad joke).
;''__su'o pa lo prenu cu prami do''__:At least one person loves you.

This last one is logically the same as ''__lo prenu cu prami do''__, which
means "there exists at least one person such that that person loves you,"
but it makes the meaning clearer and more emphatic.

!!!Exercise 2

Translate the following sentences.

# All babies are beautiful.
# The pack of three cats bite the dog.
# What a surprise! Mei Li loves two men. (use an attitudinal indicator)
# Most men love at least one woman.
# It is not true that all men love at least one woman.
# The group of four women kiss Ricky Martin.
# It's a shame that no-one likes Bill. (use an attitudinal indicator)
# The baby bites two people (separately).
# One in three women like David Bowie.
# No more than 15% of Buddhists eat meat. ("Buddhist" is ''__budjo''__, as you may remember from Lesson 3).
# Nine out of ten cats like "Whiskas." (use a ''__cmene''__)

!!Number Questions

Remembering the sentence ''__re lo mi ci mensi cu nelci la rikis.martin.''__, how would I answer the following question?

;''__xo le mensi cu nelci rikis.martin.''__:The answer, of course is ''__re''__, which means that ''__xo''__ is the question word for numbers (though not all questions that can be answered with a number have to take ''__xo''__, as we'll see in the next lesson).

''__xo''__ is also used in mathematics, as in

;''__li ci su'i vo du li xo''__:3 + 4 = ?

A few more examples:

;''__xo le botpi cu kunti''__:How many of the bottles are empty?
;''__xo lo prenu cu klama ti''__:How many people come here?
;''__do viska xo lo sonci''__:How many soldiers do you see?

__Note:__ It is not actually necessary to include the ''__lo''__ after
''__xo''__. In fact, it isn't necessary after any number~--~for example
''__ci lo gerku''__ could be simply ''__ci gerku''__, if you prefer.
However, many Lojbanists prefer to keep the ''__lo''__ for the sake of
clarity.

!!A final question

Lojban has no difference between singular and plural~--~"the dog" and "the
dogs" can both be ''__le gerku''__. But suppose you wanted to make a
distinction between the two~--~how would you do it?

!!!Summary

In addition to numbers, this lesson has entered the dangerous waters of
Lojban articles. Lojban articles may seem difficult at first, but they are
perfectly logical. In fact it's probably __because__ they are logical that
people have problems with them to start off with - you have to learn to
think in a slightly different way. For the curious, here are the main
articles and article-like words:

;''__la''__:that named
;''__le''__:that described
;''__lo''__:that which really is
;''__li''__:the number (''__lu''__ is not an article, it's a quotation mark!)
;''__la'e''__:the referent of (not really an article, as it takes a full ''__sumti''__ or pro-sumti, as in ''__la'edi'u''__~--~the thing the last sentence refers to, as opposed to the words of the last sentence)
;''__le'e''__:the stereotypical
;''__lo'e''__:the typical
;''__lai''__:the mass named
;''__lei''__:the mass described
;''__loi''__:the mass which really is
;''__la'i,''__:the set named
;''__le'i''__:the set described
;''__lo'i''__:the set which really is

We also looked briefly at ''__lu'o''__, which turns a set into a mass, and
''__lu'a''__, which turns a mass into a set of individuals ("group" and
"ungroup"). Strictly speaking, these aren't articles, though.


If all this looks terribly complicated, don't be discouraged! As you can
see, these articles are all really variants on ''__la, le''__ and
''__lo''__, which are normally all you will need. My personal advice (not
official Lojban policy!) is __when in doubt, use ''__le''____. This is
because the only time ''__le''__ is completely wrong is with a
''__cmene''__ (which needs ''__la''__, of course). If you use ''__le''__
where another article would be more appropriate, you may not express
yourself as clearly as you wanted, but at least you will not be talking
nonsense, like you would in German if you said "der Frau".


!!Answers to Exercises

!!!Exercise 1

# 35 = ''__li cimu''__
# 4,802 = ''__li vobinore''__ or ''__li vo ki'o binore''__ (the spaces are optional)
# 6,000 = ''__li xa ki'o''__
# 7.54 = ''__li ze pimuvo''__ (again the space is optional)
# 6,891,573.905 = ''__li xa ki'o bisopa ki'o muzeci pisonomu''__ (if that looks long, try writing it as a word in English!)

!!!Exercise 2

# ''__ro lo cifnu cu melbi''__
# ''__lei ci mlatu cu batci le gerku''__
# ''__.ue la meilis. prami re lo nanmu''__
# ''__so'e lo nanmu cu prami su'o pa lo ninmu''__
# ''__ro lo nanmu na prami su'o pa lo ninmu ''__
# ''__lu'o vo lo ninmu cu cinba la rikis.martin.''__ (give yourself a pat on the back if you got that one right!)
# ''__.uinai''__ [[or ''__.uu''__] ''__no lo prenu cu prami la bil.''__ or ''__na su'o pa lo prenu cu prami la bil.''__
# ''__le cinfu cu batci re lo prenu''__
# ''__pafu'ici loi ninmu cu nelci la deivd.bo,is.''__ (note that "Bowie" is not pronounced ''__bau,i''__ or as in "bowie knife")
# ''__su'e pipamu loi budjo cu citka lo rectu''__
# ''__sofu'ipano loi mlatu cu nelci la .uiskas.''__

!!!A final question

"The dog" would be ''__le pa gerku''__. Normally, we wouldn't bother with
the ''__pa''__ though, unless we wanted to make it quite clear that we only
have one dog in mind. "The dogs" would be ''__le su'o re gerku''__ (or
''__lei su'o re gerku''__, if we're thinking of them as a group)~--~"the at
least two dogs". However, it is hard to think of many situations where you
would need to say this. Like some other languages (e.g. Chinese), Lojban
normally leaves number up to context. You guessed it~--~you've just spent
all this time learning to say how many people, dogs etc. there are, and
''__piso''__ of the time, you don't need to! But, like many features of
Lojban, it can be very useful when you want it, so please don't feel
tricked.
History: Lojban Tutorial: Lesson 4

Source of version: 3 (current)

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