11.5. Amount abstractions

The following cmavo is discussed in this section:

amount abstraction

Amount abstractions are far more limited than event or property abstractions. They really make sense only if the selbri of the abstracted bridi is subject to measurement of some sort. Thus we can speak of:

Example 11.33.

le	ni	le	pixra	cu	blanu	[kei]
the	amount-of	(the	picture		being-blue	)

the amount of blueness in the picture

because “blueness” could be measured with a colorimeter or a similar device. However,

Example 11.34.

le	ni	la	.djein.	cu	mamta	[kei]
the	amount-of	(that-named	Jane		being-a-mother	)

the amount of Jane's mother-ness (?)

the amount of mother-ness in Jane (?)

makes very little sense in either Lojban or English. We simply do not have any sort of measurement scale for being a mother.

Semantically, a sumti with le ni is a number; however, it cannot be treated grammatically as a quantifier in Lojban unless prefixed by the mathematical cmavo mo'e :

Example 11.35.

li	pa	vu'u	mo'e	le	ni
the-number	1	minus	the-operand	the	amount-of	(

le	pixra	cu	blanu	[kei]
the	picture		being-blue	)

1 - B , where B = blueness of the picture

Mathematical Lojban is beyond the scope of this chapter, and is explained more fully in Chapter 18.

Whenever we talk of measurement of an amount, there is some sort of scale, and so the place structure of ni abstraction selbri is:

ni x₁ is the amount of (the bridi) on scale x₂

Note: the best way to express the x₂ places of abstract sumti is to use something like le ni ... kei be. See Example 11.59 for the use of this construction.