[lojban] Re: is minli irregular?
Jorge Llamb�as
--- Zefram wrote:
> Philip Newton wrote:
> >I suppose {fepni} is intended to be used for currency subunits, though
> >I can see how it would be more convenient to say the equivalent of
> >"one dollar sixty-five" rather than "one dollar and sixty-five cents".
ta merko rupnu li pa pi xa mu
> Indeed, just as {gutci}'s subunit place allows one to say "my height is
> five feet four" instead of "my height is five feet and four inches".
I find {mi gutci li mu pi'e vo} much more convenient than
{mi gutci li mu fo li vo}.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Zefram
place structure for non-metric units is "x1 is x2 (default 1) foo units in
the relevant quality, by standard x3, plus x4 subunits, x5 subsubunits,
...". According to the official gismu list, {minli} uniquely does not
follow this place structure. It has x3 and x4 reversed; thus x3=subunits
and x4=standard. However, looking at the three definitions for {minli}
in jbovlaste, it appears that only two, the English and Esperanto,
give this irregular place structure. The Spanish definition gives the
regular place structure, with x3=standard and x4=subunits.
Which definition is actually intended? I see no particular reason for
subunits to be relatively more important to {minli} than other unit words,
so this looks like an editorial error in the gismu list. Is it?
And a related irregularity: the definition of {rupnu} (local major
monetary unit) makes no mention of subunits. Is that intentional?
I'd say that subunits are quite frequently used with monetary units,
but of course they're mostly decimal-based subunits, so I can see why
the subunits places might have been omitted.
(See what I'm up to at <http://www.lojban.org/jbovlaste/wiki/quantities>.)
-zefram
Philip Newton
> And a related irregularity: the definition of {rupnu} (local major
> monetary unit) makes no mention of subunits. Is that intentional?
> I'd say that subunits are quite frequently used with monetary units,
> but of course they're mostly decimal-based subunits, so I can see why
> the subunits places might have been omitted.
I suppose {fepni} is intended to be used for currency subunits, though
I can see how it would be more convenient to say the equivalent of
"one dollar sixty-five" rather than "one dollar and sixty-five cents".
mu'o mi'e .filip.
--
Philip Newton <philip...@gmail.com>
Zefram
>I suppose {fepni} is intended to be used for currency subunits, though
>I can see how it would be more convenient to say the equivalent of
>"one dollar sixty-five" rather than "one dollar and sixty-five cents".
Indeed, just as {gutci}'s subunit place allows one to say "my height is
five feet four" instead of "my height is five feet and four inches".
And note that {gucti} and {milni}, both of which have subunit places,
both measure length, but at different scales. In this respect they
parallel {rupnu} and {fepni}.
-zefram
Jorge Llamb�as
--- Zefram wrote:
> The Spanish definition gives the
> regular place structure, with x3=standard and x4=subunits.
That could mean either that the old definition was like that, or
that I allowed my regularization tendency to prevail in this case.
The English gismu list had a few changes made after the Spanish
translation was done, so there may be minor differences in place
structures. (One not so minor I detected recently was {tinsa},
which I had in Spanish as "x1 fills x2 with x3", which presumably
was the old definition.)
> Which definition is actually intended? I see no particular reason for
> subunits to be relatively more important to {minli} than other unit words,
> so this looks like an editorial error in the gismu list. Is it?
Subunit places should "die in the arse", if I may use that expression.
The place structures of non-SI units should be brought into line with
the SI ones. When non-decimal subunits are needed, they are separated
from the units with {pi'e}.
> And a related irregularity: the definition of {rupnu} (local major
> monetary unit) makes no mention of subunits. Is that intentional?
> I'd say that subunits are quite frequently used with monetary units,
> but of course they're mostly decimal-based subunits, so I can see why
> the subunits places might have been omitted.
Probably because of {fepni}.
> (See what I'm up to at <http://www.lojban.org/jbovlaste/wiki/quantities>.)
Nice summary page.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail