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From: John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [lojban] Re: Again {lo}.
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--- Opi Lauma <opi_lauma@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >For example to say that the dog is man's best
> friend
> you 
> >would use {lo gerku}: {lo gerku cu xagrai
> pendo lo 
> >remna}
> 
> OK, in this example {lo gerku} means neither
> "all
> dogs" nor "some dogs", it rather means "most of
> dogs"
> isn't? Really, we can say that "the dog is
> man's best
> friend" only if MOST OF DOGS are man's best
> friends.
> Or the same {lo gerku} can be replaced here by
> "a
> typical dog" without changes in meaning, I
> think. So,
> are "most of ..." and "a typical ..." correct
> substitution for {lo}? If "Yes", can this
> interpretation be used always? By the way in
> English
> sentence "The" has been used and in lojban
> {lo}. Why?
> What happens with "the <-> le", "an/a <-> lo"
> correspondence?
> 
The {le} - "the" correspondence only works in
certain cases, namely, when the "the" is used to
mark out a a particular know (to the speaker at
least) case.  English "the" gets used in a number
of other ways, including (as here) to mark
generality: "The whale is a mammal."  Lojban {le}
is used only for those known cases; for any other
sumti that uses a decriptor, {lo} (or its
associated {loi} or {lo'i}) is used.  So, in
Lojban, generality will always take {lo} (etc.). 
(Sorry to interject a short list of exceptions
here; ignore them until later if they are
confusing.  There are of course generalities
about particular things, so "The dogs bark all
night" would get translated with {le} because
they are specific, even though the claim about
them is general.  And there are the two
explicitly general descriptors, {le'e} and
{lo'e}, which may be used instead of {lo} to make
general claims.)  Of course, {lo} is not used
just for generalities, but for all nonspecific
cases. The sentence {lo gerku cu xagrai pendo le
remna}  could, indeed, be about a single case,
loosely (that is, don't take this as a good
translation, only a clearer statement) "Some dog
is the best friend of some man".  Lojban has no
explicit mark for generality and would not have
to use it if it did, any more than it has to use
the tenses, which it does have.  We are to tell
from the context -- including our experience of
people talking or writing and so what someone is
likely to say -- what the speaker intends in the
way of mode and tense: general or particular,
present or past, actual or possible and so on.