Date:  Mon, 3 Nov 1997 21:16:00 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711040216.VAA17384@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Subject:      Re: le/lo
X-To:         lojban <lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
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Lee:
>{mi na nelci lo mlatu}, for example, says exactly the right thing: I
>don't like some cats.

No, it says that you don't like any cats. What you mean is
{mi na'e nelci lo mlatu}: There is at least one cat that I non-like.
Remember that {na} is a bridi negator, it negates the whole
bridi: "It is not the case that there is at least one cat that I like."
Perhaps what you mean is {mi na nelci ro mlatu}: "It is not the
case that I like every cat". This is one reason why it is not
advisable to insist too much with the use of {lo}. Its interactions
with {na} are very much unlike similar looking English
constructions. {le} is much more harmless in this respect.


Lojbab:
 > Using an old example and JCB's word
>"taksi" for a taxi, we will tend to translate "mi klama fu lo taksi"
>as "I came in a taxi" with virtually an exact mapping of "a" to "lo"
>in meaning.

Which is quite correct.

>(Prior debate on this issue reached the conclusion that the correct
>descriptor is "loi".  I won't attempt to reahsh this though.)

I think you are misremembering. The debate was about
"I'm waiting for a taxi" or something like that, where it is not
true that there is a taxi such that you are waiting for it. In the
case of "came" there is absolutely no problem, since there
really is such a taxi:

                            mi klama fu lo plejykarce
                            "I came in a taxi."

There's no problem either with:

                            mi denpa tu'a lo plejykarce
                            "I'm waiting for something about a taxi."

because the quantification is within the abstraction:

                             mi denpa le nu lo plejykarce ti klama
                             "I wait for the event that there is a taxi that
comes here."

The problem you refer to appears in things like:

                            mi sisku lo'e plejykarce
                            "I'm looking for a taxi."

where you don't want to claim that there is a taxi such that you are
looking for it. I don't agree that the conclusion we reached was that
the right gadri to use was {loi}, either. I think that the correct one
is {lo'e}.

co'o mi'e xorxes