[lojban-beginners] Re: personal pronouns

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 02:32:43PM -0500, Matt Arnold wrote:
> Is {do'o} a plural "you" like the Spanish "usted"? 

So I gather.

> Or is it only to be used when some of those it refers to are not
> among the listener(s)?

Well, see, that depends on how you've bound your listeners.

If I'm talking to bab and raitcel:

doi la .bab. xu do'o klama le zarci fi'o se kansa mi

doi la .bab. .e la .raitcel. xu do klama le zarci fi'o se kansa mi

Generally, it is assumed (at least by me) that you are talking to
one person at a time.

> How do we speak about the third person without including the first
> or second person? 

Several options:

ti/ta/tu

le go'i/go'e/go'a/etc

le ninmu/nanmu/remna poi <identifier here>

la bab

ko'a

by (stands for bab, or whatever)

> I know there are no gender-based pronouns such as "he" or "she"
> but I expected a genderless third-person pronoun and a plural to
> mean "they." Are such pronouns translated using {ko'a}
> he/she/it/they? 

That's one way, yes.

> I know that can apply, but doesn't it have to be
> assigned a referent with {goi}? Is that required? 

Define "required".  If you're talking to a computer, yes, but most
humans can deal with "OK, the person we're talking about is now
ko'a, despite this never really having been defined".

doi .bab. la .raitcel. diklo ma .i mi pu kanpe[1] lo nu ko'a klama
ti

I'd just use 'ry' there myself, though.

> What if we want to leave {ko'a} unspecified except for a gender or
> number -- how is that expressed?

da

-Robin

[1]: kanpe is a proposed experimental gismu meaning "expect",
because it's really hard to get there from the current gismu list.
It's just like pacna except without the connotation of desire.

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