From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu May 19 15:38:13 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 95094 invoked from network); 19 May 2005 22:38:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m26.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 19 May 2005 22:38:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 19 May 2005 22:38:13 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1DYtea-00058x-QV for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 19 May 2005 15:38:09 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1DYteN-000588-HR; Thu, 19 May 2005 15:37:56 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 19 May 2005 15:37:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1DYteB-00057U-Km for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Thu, 19 May 2005 15:37:43 -0700 Received: from phma.hn.org ([216.189.113.165] helo=blackcat.ixazon.lan) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1DYte9-00056V-Oc for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 19 May 2005 15:37:43 -0700 Received: by blackcat.ixazon.lan (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 9B8C76609; Thu, 19 May 2005 22:37:09 +0000 (UTC) Organization: dis Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 18:37:06 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.5 References: <20050519111254.74956.qmail@web32115.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20050519111254.74956.qmail@web32115.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200505191837.06490.phma@phma.hn.org> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 9984 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: phma@phma.hn.org X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0 X-eGroups-From: Pierre Abbat From: Pierre Abbat Reply-To: phma@phma.hn.org Subject: [lojban] Re: {le} and {lo}. X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 24356 On Thursday 19 May 2005 07:12, Opi Lauma wrote: > Hi all, > > I try to understand the usage of {le} and {lo}. The > analogy with English articles “the” and “a/an” does > not help me to much since I am not native English > speaker. > > However, I think that I understood the usage of {le}. > Actually {le X} means that I speak about some earlier > selected (defined) subset of elements from set X, for > example: "the" in English means that the speaker expects the listener to know which thing is being referred to. {le} in Lojban means that the speaker knows which thing he is referring to. To indicate that the thing has not been mentioned before, one says {bi'u}. Some examples where the usage differs between languages: ni'o le bi'u cmalu bloti Il était un petit navire There was a little boat (a French folk song) The speaker knows which boat, but the listener doesn't. mi ba skagau lei kerfa sepi'o lo me'andi Je coloriserai les cheveux avec du henné. I will color my hair with henna. I know which hair I will color, but I don't know which henna I will use (I'm going to order some more soon). .a'o lo fasygu'e cu renvi Vive la France! Long live France! There is only one France, so Lojban uses {lo}, for reasons I don't have time to go into now (I have a meeting). I'd use {la fasygug} instead but used a brivla for this example. phma -- lo nu punji lo sovda be lo cipnrkuku kukuku zvati lo zdani be lo na'e cipnrkuku kuku