Re: Word orders in comparative constructions

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 21:49, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>> And with specific excess: {la djan. bramau la meris. lo centre be li
>> pa re} / {la djan. zmadu la meris. lo ka ce'u barda ku lo centre be li
>> pa re} "John is bigger than Mary by twelve centimetres" (lo centre be
>> li pa re = something which is this many hundredth-metres in length:
>> one two).
>
> Interesting; so is "centimeter" the basic
> length-measure term in Lojban and "meter"
> is derived from it, or is there another root
> word for "meter"...?
"centimetre" is derived: {centre} consists of the bound morphemes
("rafsi") {cen} < {centi} "hundredth" and {tre} < {mitre} "meter".

I could have used {lo mitre be li pi pa re} "something which is this
many metres in length: point one two" but decided against decimals.

> In gzb I mostly lexicalize
> the same units of measure that are basic
> in the metric system, but I have a root
> for "kilogram" from which "gram" is derived,
Lojban has {grake} "gram" as basic; presumably because lexically, so
does English, and many other languages, even if in SI terms, the gram
is derived ("milli-kilogram"?).

> and as expressions for volume are fairly
> verbose, I"m thinking of adding a root
> for either "liter" or "milliliter"; not sure
> which would be most common.
FWIW, Lojban has {litce} "litre".

It all depends on what you measure, I suppose! Soda cans are typically
in ml, soda bottles in l; milk in cartons is in l, but milk in recipes
is in ml.

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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