History: va'e

Source of version: 1 (current)

According to ((the book)), the place structure of PA + va'e is: x1 is at scale position (n) on the scale x2 unless the PA is one of the ((subjective numbers)) (du'e, rau or mo'a). In which case the place structure is: x1 is at scale position (n) on the scale x2 by standard x3 ---- ''le vi rozgu cu pibi__va'e__ le ka ce'u xunre'' This rose is .8 on the scale of redness. This rose is very red. ''mi piso'u__va'e__ le ka ce'u krici la'e di'u'' I am very little on the scale of beieving that. I barely believe it. ''la'e di'u piso'u__va'e__ le ka mi krici ce'u'' That is very little on the scale of being believed by me. I barely believe it. ''le nu mi krici la'e di'u cu piso'u__va'e__ le ka ce'u fasnu'' My believing it is very little on the scale of occurring. I barely believe it. ''le du'u mi krici la'e di'u cu piso'u__va'e__ le ka ce'u fatci'' That I believe it is very little on the scale of being a fact. I barely believe it. Is this how it is supposed to be used? * For simpler ways to say "barely", "moderately" and "very" -- and "almost" -- see ((JAhA + CAI)). --((And)) I don't think you are required to use the pi though (not that it is neccesarily wrong). va'e allows the range of the scale to be defined by the speaker. * How? The example from the Book suggests that it has to be a 0-1 scale. ** It says no such thing. The book does say that numbers for ((cu'o)) must be between 0-1 right above it, however; so perhaps you misread it as part of the va'e section? The only va'e example in the book is a granular sofi'upanova'e scale, which (see below), it explicitly says isn't the same as just any old decimal number from 0-1. *** I said it ''suggests''. It is not the best example because it is used as a tanru modifier. But the scale is "redness", and the value on the scale is 9/10 according to the Lojban and 8/10 in English. **** I don't think it neccesarily suggests that. It certainly doesn't disclaim that either, however; perhaps this is an area where the book needs clarification. The more interesting usage, and the ones which supersede ((xoi)) (in ((Jordan DeLong|my)) opinion) are the ones which use subjective PA cmavo like ((rau)), ((du'e)), and ((mo'a)). ''le gerku cu jai du'eva'e fenki'' The dog is too high on the scale of craziness. The dog is too crazy. * Would that expand as ''le gerku cu du'eva'e le ka jai fenki''? ** I don't think so, as it says that nowhere in the book. However in this case it seems to have the same meaning. Also shouldn't that be a ''ni'' instead of a ''ka''? *** Well, the tanru must have some meaning, that one seems the most obvious. I tend to avoid ''ni'' because it has too many competing meanings. I would say that the number in front of ''va'e'' says to what extent the property x2 is present in x1. That's why ''pidu'e'' makes somewhat more sense to me. Is that how we are to understand "scale"? **** Right; I agree it works in this case, I just don't think you can always make that sort of transformation neccesarily. ***** Do you have a particular example in mind? * Is ''du'eva'e'' better than ''dukse''? ** Probably not (though I wouldn't say it is worse either). But it's better than "du'exoi" (see ((xoi))). ***It might be useful to have a list of equivalences or near equivalences, something like: pidu'e va'e - dukse pimo'a va'e - toldu'e pirau va'e - banzu piso'i va'e - mutce piso'o va'e - milxe piso'u va'e - toltce piro va'e - mulno * I don't think the ''pi'' is necessary on any of these. ** ''pidu'e'' is "too much", ''du'e'' is "too many". I can understand "too much of a property", but I don't understand "too many" in this context. Too many what? What are the countable things of which there are too many? I could understand ''du'e fi'u ro'' as an alternative to ''pidu'e''. --((xorxes)) *** ''du'e fi'u ro'' is somewhat weird though, as the fi'u is supposed to be used with ''va'e'' when there's a granular scale. You don't need to specify the range of the scale, so just ''du'eva'e'' works fine. There's nothing wrong with ''pidu'e'' (I think it's just like you would expect ''du'e fi'u ro'' to be, but it suggests the scale is continuous and not granular), but you can save yourself saying the ''pi'' without losing anything. --mi'e ((.djorden.)) ** It's true that ''du'e'' is glossed as "too many" and ''pi du'e'' as "too much", but I suspect this is just a matter of heedlessness and incompetent glossing. Partitive "too much of" is indeed ''pi du'e'', but English "much" is also the counterpart of "many" for uncountables -- both mean "a large amount of". It makes some sense for ''du'e'' to mean "too large a quantity of", and no sense for "too much water" to be "pi du'e djacu". --((And)) *** Hmmm... Consider ''du'e djacu cu se pinxe lo prenu''. To me that means that too many waters were (each) drunk by some (maybe different) person, and not that too much water was drunk by some preson. --((xorxes)) *** Okay: I'm inclined to agree with you. It does "make some sense for ''du'e'' to mean 'too large a quantity of'", but it's nevertheless not a good idea. But I still think that {pi du'e djacu} does not mean "too much water". --((And)) *** See now ((a lot of water)). --((And)) * It's not clear to me how these schemes differentiate between degrees of sort-ofness (position in the no man's land between true and false) and degrees of truth and falsity ("very true", etc: cf. ((JAhA + CAI))). --((And)) Since you can also define a granular scale in the same thing in front of it, the book allows usages like ''le skami pixra selci cu panoci fi'u remumu va'e blanu'' The pixel is 103/255 blue. * I suppose that's ''le skami pixra selci cu 103/255va'e le ka blanu'' ** see above about those fenki gerku. *** Is there a better interpretation? * That's still a 0-1 scale, even if granular. ** It's a 0-255 scale, using only integers, actually. The book says that if you use a form with ''fi'u'' for the scale granularly, that you can't consider it to be just a number value. I.e. you can't convert cifi'uxa va'e (3/6) to pafi'ure va'e (1/2), and presumably not to ''pimu'' (another 1/2) either. *** That's clear, but the point is that the actual divisions of the scale are always implicit, within (n). At least that's what the examples suggest. So x2 is the property measured more than the scale. ---- All that said, ((Jordan DeLong|I)) would be inclined to assume that any number starting with ''pi'' in front of a va'e implies the scale is from 0-1.