From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri May 05 15:30:49 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 05 May 2006 15:30:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Fc8of-0003E9-Ou for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:30:29 -0700 Received: from wr-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.184.230]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1Fc8oc-0003E0-FX for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:30:29 -0700 Received: by wr-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id i13so700444wra for ; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:30:25 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=YHVhR9kiXZH9JnPS/3UFBSS4gk+ZGskJI4Cyo/dQc/jM7MwNWFBoiB//B0WJ8FADmWaMsJKTf0FOaBotXwtf4xzqxhlb515It2IXRXZdXh0ypEG3dyWwu3lCefM4Cml1UrJBBHAXGDe1z/h4TV39ugH6HLRVgt+RDTQUEdaUPq4= Received: by 10.54.113.2 with SMTP id l2mr315620wrc; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:30:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.54.126.18 with HTTP; Fri, 5 May 2006 15:30:25 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <925d17560605051530p7424d42are010a5aa9f6962d@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 19:30:25 -0300 From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <20060505125724.6757.qmail@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <925d17560605051356y14c8bc45xf602f0e8189b1d5e@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11400 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 5/5/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > My suggested definition does not assert that le and lo have /anything/ > to do with "the" and "a", which you've clearly demonstrated are > handled by {bi'u}, so I don't understand what you're illustrating. I wasn't specifically addressing your definition, I was just offering some more food for thought. I wouldn't say that {le} and {lo} have nothing to do with "the" and "a", I think there is a fairly strong correaltion, as follows: English "a" almost always will best be translated to Lojban as {lo}. English "the" more often than not will best be translated as {le}. Lojban {le} almost always will best be translated to English as "the". Lojban {lo} does not have one best correspondence in English, I would say bare plural, "a" and "the" all have their fair chances of being the best translation, and then there are some other contenders like "some" as well. Bare plural in English will almost always be best translated as {lo}. "Some" in English will sometimes be best translated as {lo} and sometimes as {su'o}. Anyway, to address your definitions: > {le crino} - some specific thing that (by my definition) is a bear. > {lo crino} - some specific thing that (by actual definition) is a bear. (crino->cribe) I'm bothered by "specific" here. {le cribe} is used to refer to a specific bear (or several specific bears), but {lo crino} is not used to refer to specific bear or bears, in general it is used for non-specific reference. Now, your definition does not really speak of specific bears, only of specific things, and bears, nonspecifically as bears, can be said to be a specific thing. I may be talking about a specific thing, namely bears, but at the same time not talking about any specific bear at all. Is that what you meant? In any case, even if not wrong, I think using the word "specific" in the definition of {lo} is a very bad idea. It will bring more confusion than clarity. On the other hand, {le cribe} does refer to specific bears, and your definition of {le} doesn't mention that. {le cribe} cannot be used to refer to a specific thing like "humans in general" even if by some quirk of the context I'm calling humans bears. It could only refer to some specific humans (that I happen to describe as bears). So I couldn't use {le cribe cu palci} to mean that humans are evil by nature, but I could use it to mean that some particular humans (which ones should be clear from the context) are evil. mu'o mi'e xorxes To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.