From robin@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx Mon Apr 12 01:09:55 1999 X-Digest-Num: 111 Message-ID: <44114.111.617.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 11:09:55 +0300 From: Robin Turner >> Had I used {le plise}, the meaning necessarily would have been that > >> each child ate the same apple (or apples, but each child eats them all). > >> > >I don't think {le} demands this, though it may suggest it. > > It demands it. It maps directly to what would be in logical notation > something like: > > For every x which is one of the three children, and for every y > which > is one of the apples, x eats y. > Does it say this in the formal grammar? After all, {le} is not necessarily singular. > I never said {lei} wasn't useful. In {mi se batci lei ci gerku} I may or may > not receive three bites, is that what you mean? The difference is more > striking in examples like: > > le ci gerku cu grake li munoki'o > lei ci gerku cu grake li munoki'o > > which clearly have to refer to different situations. All I meant was that > if you had to choose one single article and drop all others then it should > be {lei} which is in my opinion the most basic. I misunderstood you - I thought you were saying that if you were going to drop any article, it would be {lei}. Actually I only think articles are of much use in identifying something as a sumti rather than a selbri - if this weren't vital in order to parse a lojban sentence, I wouldn't bother with articles at all. As my Turkish wife says, "artikeller gereksiz" (unnecessary). co'o mi'e robin.