On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 3:58 PM, .arpis= . <rp= glover64+jbobau@gmail.com> wrote:

I was aware that {roda} isn't restricted to people or physical objects,= but it's difficult to express that in English.

It's interes= ting that you refer to a "universe of discourse".=A0 Not having a= ny strong background in linguistics, philosophy, or logic, I don't know= what precisely this means, but it seems like it's what I'm thinkin= g about.

In English, when I say "Everyone's going home.", I am fir= st of all probably exaggerating but second of all I really mean "Every= one [of the set who isn't me in the relevant location] is going home&qu= ot;.=A0 It's like I said "roda [poi co'e] cu cliva".

Does the universe of discourse always consist of all things that can po= ssibly be talked about?

Also, am I correct in my memory of {da}'= s scope?

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>= wrote:

On Thursday 17 Feb= ruary 2011 13:42:46 .arpis. wrote:
> I'm wondering about the usage of {roda} in lojban. =A0In English, = at least,
> "everything" and "everyone" carry an implicit rest= riction; AFAIK lojban
> does not do that, which makes {roda} without explicit restriction eith= er
> factually incorrect in most cases or useful only in very precise
> conversation.

Neither "da" nor "ma" is restricted to persons or= things, as "who" and "what"
are in English. A word can be implicitly restricted, as in "le cukta b= e bau
lo fraso": "lo fraso" here refers to the French language, no= t a French
person, which it might refer to elsewhere.

> This has gotten me thinking more about the semantics of {da}. I seem t= o
> recall that {da}'s binding has bridi scope.
> If I say {da prenu} without a prenex, am I commenting on the existence= of a
> man {si} person (to'i damn sexist language creeping in when I don&= #39;t think
> toi)?
> If I say {roda prenu} without a prenex, am I saying that all "thi= ngs" in
> the world are people?
> Can I use {ko'a} without having explicitly assigned it e.g. {ko= 9;a noi pendo
> mi co'e} instead of {ko'a goi lo pendo be mi co'e}?

"da prenu" means "there is a person". "roda = prenu" means "everything/everyone
is a person", where "roda" refers to everything in the unive= rse of discourse,
so unless the universe of discourse consists entirely of persons, it's = false.

"ko'a" can be used without being assigned; it's up to the= listener to figure
it out. I did this in le cmalu bloti; "ko'a" refers to the wh= ole crew, or to
the crew minus the boy, and "ko'e" refers to the boy.

Pierre
--
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wal= es.

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