Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 18:44:56 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711142344.SAA22576@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Sender: Lojban list From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Subject: Re: le/lo X-To: lojban To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 839 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Nov 14 18:45:27 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU And: >(Based on actual usage, though, they do seem to generally >be used as singulars. I, though, would recommend using lo/le >for plurals, and for singulars and by default using loi/lei.) To make true the wrong in my opinion but often made claim that Lojban does not mark number, loi/lei _should_ be the natural default gadri, but in practice lo/le are used as default. (I know that lo/le are not always singular, but they always refer individually. Plural is often used in other languages to refer collectively.) lo/le always entail loi/lei respectively, but the converse is not true. Perhaps it is malglico to use lo/le as the default for single referents (especially le), but it is a malglico that comes from the very inception of the language, since obviously lo/le are morphologically less marked than loi/lei. co'o mi'e xorxes