[lojban-beginners] Re: Help! The Xorlo are attacking!

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 08 February 2010 22:56:52 Stela Selckiku wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 4:34 PM, Whipsnerd Lhooser
> > xorlo:
>
> This, in spite of its appearance, is not a gismu.  It is a strange
> English portmanteau of "xorxes" and "lo".  I will use it in a
> sentence: "It is way waaaaaay easier to use Lojban since xorlo."

lo zu'o do pilno lo gadri cu xorlo

"lo" is used to refer to a species as if it were one individual, though "lo'e" 
could also be so used:
lo rikteropu cu friko .i lo .ornitorinku cu sralo
The aardvark is African; the platypus is Australian.
Aardvarks are African; platypodes are Australian.

One usage I came up with, which isn't xorlo, is "lo'e se" followed by the name 
of a plant or animal. lo'e se guzme is Cucurbitaceae; lo se guzme could be 
Cucurbitaceae, Sicyos, Cucumis, or any of various other taxa. "lo'e se latna" 
doesn't refer to anything, since lotuses are in at least two unrelated taxa.

> > lai:
>
> I have almost never seen this article seriously used.  A mass of those
> named?  So, like, the Smith family all carry a piano together, "lai
> .smit. cu bevri lo pipno"??  It doesn't seem to come up!

I use it for plural geographic names, such as "lai .andes .e lai .alp".

There are also "lo'e" and "le'e", which mean "the typical" and "the typical 
one of the ones I have in mind", and "lo'i", "le'i", and "la'i", which 
mean "the/a set of (/the ones in mind/the ones named)". Those don't get used 
much. (There is a word "la'e", but it isn't an article. It means "the 
referent of", and its most frequent use is in "la'edi'u".)

Pierre
-- 
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci