[lojban-beginners] Re: Why not a new LfB text?

["Matt Arnold" <matt.mattarn@gmail.com>]

On 10/17/07, Wood Foster-Smith <wrfostersmith@gmail.com> wrote:
> What I'm hearing andrus. saying is this (and I share the sentiment):
>
> "I'm a new lojban learner.  How can I be sure that what I'm learning in
> "lobjan for beginners" is actually correct?  Am I learning complicated rules
> of logic and grammar that people don't adhere to, or that are never used in
> practice?"
>
> I'm a REALLY new lojban learner -- I'm in Chapter 5 of LfB right now -- but
> I saw the earlier posting on this list about xorlo and, although I don't
> even know what gadri is yet, I saw that xorlo touches on the use of le, lo
> and loi, and that was a pretty complex little section that I spent some good
> time trying to grasp.  It was disconcerting seeing the xorlo information and
> wondering if that was a waste of time.
>
> I'm not trying to be uptight about this -- it's all really just intellectual
> fun for me -- but it would be nice to know when something I'm learning isn't
> really "true", if that's ever the case.
>
> Wood (mudris.)
>

Have no fear. The original difference between {lo} and {le} is that
one of them is veridical ("that which really is") and the other one
isn't ("that which I describe as, but I'm not committed to the truth
of that description"). I have always found it to be loaded with a vast
epistemological burden.

The new difference between {lo} and {le} in xorlo is that {lo cribe}
is generic bears in general, and {le cribe} is a specific bear you
have in mind. Carry that forward to the distinction between {lei} and
{loi}, {le'i} and {lo'i}, etc.

By the way, gadri means {lo} {le} {la} etc. Articles. You use them to
start a sumti (argument), thereby distinguishing it from the selbri
(predicate relationship). That is unchanged between LfB and xorlo.

Not too bad, is it? During my seven years of Lojban learning,
organizer of the Lojban festival, Lojban podcaster, and member of the
Board of Directors of the Logical Language Group, at no point was it
an important enough distinction that I was impaired by it. Getting
past this adjustment to the distinction between {le} and {lo} (and a
minor quibble concerning name punctuation) is not difficult, and this
is far and away the biggest change.

-Eppcott