To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: ti, ta, tu for people?
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Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 12:44:58 +0100 (CET)
From: "jexOm." <jexom@free.fr>
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> > Is it correct to use ti, ta, tu for people?
> 
> Why should ti, ta, tu not be used for people? You can point at people 
> and say "this person", "that person" and "and the person way over 
> there". I guess you feel bad about this because you were raised in 
> culture that teaches its children not to point at people.

I think Philip raised this question more because the CLL almost always says that
"ta" is "that thing", etc.
Like in http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter2.html :

"The cmavo ``ti'', ``ta'', and ``tu'' refer to whatever the speaker is pointing
at, and should not be used to refer to things that cannot in principle be
pointed at."

The terms "whatever" and "things that" may make think that this applies to
things only, not to persons. I.e. that it can be used for "it" only, not for
"he" or "she".

More, http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter7.html says:

"3. Demonstrative pro-sumti: the ti-series
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
   ti  KOhA    ti-series   this here, a nearby object
   ta  KOhA    ti-series   that there, a medium-distant object
   tu  KOhA    ti-series   that yonder, a far-distant object"

So, to me Philip's question is understandable, since a person is not an "object".

  Jérôme.