How to Say "is made of"?

5 views
Skip to first unread message

H. Felton

unread,
Nov 6, 2011, 7:37:39 AM11/6/11
to lojban Group
I know that the CLL uses "living things are made of cells" as
an *example* of the use of "zi'o" --
"loi jimve cu se zabsu zi'o loi selci" --; nevertheless,
there must be a better way of expressing the "made of"
relationship. My thought-of sentence was "ordinary matter is
made of atoms" (On an incidental note, I decided that I needed
to use "slabu" for this use of "ordinary".); I ended up with
"lo slabu marji ku gunma lo ratni".

As far as the original "loi jimve cu se zabsu zi'o loi selci",
I can see no reason post-xorlo that "lo" wouldn't work just as
well as "loi"; ie, "lo jimve cu se zabsu zi'o lo selci". Then
with my choice for "is made of": "lo jimve cu gunma lo selci".

I'm not so sure about the choice of "lo" vs "loi" as I am that
there _should be_ a better expression for "is made of" than
having to use "zabsu" with the maker place blocked up with
"zo'i"; the concept of "is made of" is just too common.


Robin Lee Powell

unread,
Nov 6, 2011, 7:41:37 AM11/6/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
On Sun, Nov 06, 2011 at 07:37:39AM -0500, H. Felton wrote:
> I know that the CLL uses "living things are made of cells" as
> an *example* of the use of "zi'o" --
> "loi jimve cu se zabsu zi'o loi selci" --; nevertheless,
> there must be a better way of expressing the "made of"
> relationship.

http://vlasisku.lojban.org/vlasisku/marji

-Robin

--
http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei". My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/

Michael Turniansky

unread,
Nov 8, 2011, 4:39:03 PM11/8/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
  (incidentally, it's "zbasu", not "zabsu")



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to loj...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+un...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.


djandus

unread,
Nov 9, 2011, 1:19:19 PM11/9/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
I see nothing wrong with using {gunma} in general, since I'd define "composed of" to mean "made up of", and it's certainly far better than something like {cmima}

Was Robin trying to say that marji₂ already has this covered? I don't think that's very good for the defining statement -- as in, saying {slabu marji lo ratni ku} conveys that we're talking about ordinary matter made up of atoms, not that all ordinary matter is made up of atoms.

Also, mass lysdexia seemed to have been in effect, for zbasu and jmive both.

mu'o mi'e djandus

MorphemeAddict

unread,
Nov 9, 2011, 1:43:18 PM11/9/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 1:19 PM, djandus <jan...@gmail.com> wrote:
I see nothing wrong with using {gunma} in general, since I'd define "composed of" to mean "made up of", and it's certainly far better than something like {cmima}

Was Robin trying to say that marji₂ already has this covered? I don't think that's very good for the defining statement -- as in, saying {slabu marji lo ratni ku} conveys that we're talking about ordinary matter made up of atoms, not that all ordinary matter is made up of atoms.
 
Aren't they the same in this case? After all, he's *defining* ordinary matter to be made up of atoms. Thus all of it is.
 
stevo 
 

Also, mass lysdexia seemed to have been in effect, for zbasu and jmive both.

mu'o mi'e djandus

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/lojban/-/85OWvh3nlQMJ.

djandus

unread,
Nov 9, 2011, 2:53:06 PM11/9/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
Well, I'm saying that aren't the meanings of:

.i lo pamoi .i slabu marji lo ratni
.i lo remoi .i lo slabu marji ku gunma lo ratni

distinct in that the first says "ordinary matter made up of atoms", as if {lo ratni} is clarifying which kind of ordinary matter we are talking about, and that there are other ordinary matters we aren't talking about that aren't made up of atoms;
whereas the second says "ordinary matter is made up of atoms" as a declarative, since the "made up of" part is the selbri.
More lojbanically, if I were to compare the masses (the x₁s, as it happens) being discussed in each of these, I would get:

.i lo pamoi gunma ku du lo slabu marji be lo ratni
.i lo remoi gunma ku du lo slabu marji ku lo gunma be lo ratni

where the first is simply talking about a mass of ordinary matter, the kind made up of atoms, and the second is explicitly saying the mass is the same as the ordinary matter is the same as the mass made up of cells.

I guess my question is, do these hold the meaning differences my mind wants to give them, or am I missing something?

H. Felton

unread,
Nov 9, 2011, 3:58:48 PM11/9/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
In some senses, I have been "out of circulation" for 10 to 15
years; so some things may have changed. 15 years ago, it was
thought that "dark matter" made up at least 90% of the
universe's mass; so I chose "slabu" over "fadni" in this case.
I am also not including matter (trans)formed in expensive
physics labs nor the nuclei/free electron plasma of active
stars as "slabu" (familiar) matter to human beings. Thus, I
*am* intending to say that all familiar matter is composed of
atoms. Perhaps I should use a "lo'i" after all: "ro lo'i ro
slabu marji ku gunma lo ratni".

Regarding the question of using the second place of "marji",
I have decided that that is not enough to cover the types of
"made of" that I have in mind; "a line is made of (composed of)
points" or "a Fraction Object is made of (composed of) two
Integer Objects" -- a programming example --; neither of these
is regarded as being made of *matter* at all, but both fall
within the concept of "made of" or "composed of" as I believe
it needs to be defined. "gunma" appears to be the best *gismu*
for the job, though I wouldn't object to a lujvo being used for
the job.


Michael Turniansky

unread,
Nov 11, 2011, 1:06:39 PM11/11/11
to loj...@googlegroups.com
   se marji works for most cases of defining what something is made of.  But if you are looking (as your latter examples) of stuff that are wholly comprised of components, and you don't want to use zilzba, you can aslo use mulselpau.
 
          --gejyspa

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages