Hoo boy! Why don't you start with a hard one? le/l= o in Lojban (we won't even get into what has happened in Loglan) has been a= source of endless toing and froing. The short answer is that 'le bro= da' is an expression that refers to a thing (or group of things) the speake= r has in mind to refer to. It does that successfully if the hearer ta= kes it to refer to that thing (or things), The 'broda' part is techni= cally just there to hold up the 'le', although practically it should help t= he hearer in identifying the intended object. "The whatsit" would be = as good if it got the right thing (even if that thing actually were a broda= ). 'lo' is the opposite. Its job is to turn a predication into a noun= , a noun that somehow (sometimes mysteriously how) is related to things that satisfy that predicate. Skipping over a number of peripheral ca= ses, which may never come up in your experience -- as long as you stay out = of philosophical discussions, 'lo broda' refers to some brodas, which= ones being contextually determined (eventually, one hopes -- but, if not, = it probably doesn't matter). So, for talking about brodas, 'lo broda'= is usually the way to go, unless there is a special reason for narrowing f= ocus (although even this can often be done by context). For sorting o= ut different critters with the same decription, Lojban has an array of of "= here/there/ yonder" and "the just mentioned /the new guy/the even new guy" = short words that hook on to the gadri rather easily.

From: jamie bechtel <jamie6297@= yahoo.com>
To: lojba= n-list@lojban.org
Sent:= Tue, June 8, 2010 2:09:04 PM
Subj= ect: [lojban]

Hell= o all. I've begun looking into Lojban (and Loglan), and if this is th= e appropriate place to do so, I'll be asking questions here...

If I say "le bajra" several times in an utterance, I assume that eac= h instance is normally interpreted as having the same reference (i.e. I'm probably talking about only one runner). Is= there a curt/simple way to indicate that I'm talking about a new/different= runner (eg. "the runner spoke to the runner about the runner")?

Loglan "le", and in some places Lojban "le" is described as = analogous to the English definite article (i.e. "le bajra" means the partic= ular runner that I have in mind). Elsewhere, "le/lo" are distinguishe= d by whether or not "the runner" really is a runner, or merely something th= at I casually choose to call a runner (correct?). Are both of these i= nterpretations of "le" correct? And if "lo" can only mean "that which= is most definitely a...", under what circumstances would I use it? A= ll that I can think of is "a man walks into a bar...", and other such = jokes. It looks to me like there's no real indefinite article, and th= at "le" is going to be used much more than "lo". Not that that looks like a problem to me. I just want to be sure that I have a clear understanding of gadri.

I believe that "le mi cutci", and "le cutci pe le bajra" ar= e legitimate, correct? Can one also say "le cutci pe mi"? Can o= ne say "le mi pe bajra"??

Attitude indicators seem= to follow rather than precede the words that they modify. Why do the= y differ in this way from other Lojban words?

Than= ks for your time and attention.

-jamie

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