On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 8:29 AM, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.c= om> wrote:

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Ian Johnson <= blindbravado@gm= ail.com> wrote:

The first version is wrong; that says "there exists exactly one yellow= haired thing which ..." (Rather, there is a very slightly less contro= versial version that I tend to subscribe to: "there is exactly one yel= low-haired thing that is at all possible to come up in discussion which ...= " The point is that the default universe of discourse should be the universe of discourse, there shouldn't be anything that be reasona= bly anticipated to come up in conversation that isn't actually in it.) =

I subscribe to the idea that the "universe= of discourse" is bound by the context that discourse is in, mainly be= cause forcing PA GISMU to mean that there is exactly PA things that GISMU m= akes the construct pretty much useless, seeing as statements like that are = pretty much always incorrect. But this isn't the list to talk about the= e issues, being the beginner's thread and all.
=A0
If you use su'o instead it's not terrible, but really {da} construc= ts when you don't want nice sharp precision tend to be undesirable, in = my experience.

At any rate, here I'd probably say {lo se ke pel= xu kerfa}. {le} might also be appropriate in this context, but I doubt I= 9;d use it. That said, I think more likely the structure of the discussion = would be different among fluent in-real-life Lojban speakers. (Few of these= exist; I, for example, am pretty quick on IRC, but am almost completely he= lpless when it comes to spatial things.) I'd expect a lot of up-front e= stablishment of pronouns, for example.

mi'e la latro'a mu'o

On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Jones <= eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 10:01 AM, neizyn. <<= a href=3D"mailto:sjacket@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">sjacket@gmail.com= > wrote:

coi
.i mi'e neizyn.
=A0
Sorry, I'= ;m just a beginnger! but I was wondering about a special situation.
Suppose there's a group of girls with one guy; I'm talking to on= e of the girls, and I make a statement referring to the guy without unambig= uously referring to him by name or other reference. This is because he'= s the only person in the group like that. Say he's blonde. Is there a w= ay=A0I can say that "someone is blond" oooooor 'blonde exists= /obtains such that x is blonde' ? Better yet, could I use that with som= e kind of reference?=A0

{pa pelxre} =3D=3D {pa da poi pelkre} =3D> &= quot;one X which-is golden-haired"
{pa lo prenu poi pelxre} =3D>= "A singular person which-is blonde"
{lo pelxre prenu} =3D>= "One or more blonde type-of person"
{ko'a goi (any of the above)} =3D> "It-1, which-is what we will= call {any of the above)"

I'm sure there's other ways t= o do it as well, but those are the most obvious, to me at any rate.

--
mu'o mi= 9;e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk.= mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D = )