X-Digest-Num: 118 Message-ID: <44114.118.656.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 13:19:25 +0300 From: Robin Turner Subject: Re: di'e preti zo nu X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 656 Content-Length: 1935 Lines: 49 la lojbab. cusku di'e > > The spirit of the baseline is that we should not make authoritative > pronouncements anyway. But it was also the spirit of the baseline that the basics of the language should be clear. The articles aren't. The other mega-debate that appeared on this list was the {djuno/krici/fatci} conundrum, but that was a lot easier to leave up to usage (which was what happened in the end anyway) than something as fundamental as articles. Maybe I'm labouring the point, but as someone who is frequently driven crazy trying to explain English articles, I don't want to be in a similar position with Lojban articles. > We are trying to transition to a usage-based > decision process. So decide what you like; write using that approach, and > see if people understand. Fair enough. But we need to be careful not to then fall into the trap of using Lojban articles as analogs of natlang articles. I shall therefore continue using articles as I have been doing, perhaps with a slight change of emphasis as a result of exchanges with Jorge: (hope the spacing comes out OK) semantic pragmatic (default function) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- lo X | member(s) of the set X some X, doesn't matter which le X | something(s) I call X particular X I have in mind | (possibly though not necessarily known | to you) loi X | member(s) of the set X some bunch of X's | treated as a mass lei X | mass of that which bunch of X's I have in mind | I call X I don't use {lo'e} and {le'e} much, so I'll need to consider them more. The semantic/pragmatic split should not be taken as absolute; "default function" simply means "the way (but not the only way) I would use it." co'o mi'e robin.