Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: {le} and {lo}

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

On 1 July 2011 23:43, Ben Foppa <eatingstaples@gmail.com> wrote:
> it would seem that I would tell a
> story using {le} instead of {lo}, as long as I'm thinking of a
> persistent instance, and not talking about dogs in a more abstract
> sense.

That has been the traditional understanding and tendency of {le} in
the community. Today, however, {lo} is gaining a more generic status
due to the xorlo proposal. Compare the older and newer versions of
Alice:

  http://www.lojban.org/texts/translations/alice/alice.pdf
  http://lojban.org/~rlpowell/alis/alis.html

  la alis co’a tatpi le nu zutse le rirxe korbi re’o le mensi gi’e zukte fi noda
  la .alis. co'a tatpi lo nu zutse lo rirxe korbi re'o lo mensi gi'e
zukte fi no da

  i abuboi so’uroi sutra zgana le cukta poi le mensi cu tcidu
  .i .abu cu so'u roi sutra zgana lo cukta poi my tcidu

The sister etc. are a persistent instance of mensi1 etc. throughout
the story, and xorlo allows you to refer to such particular entities
with either {le} or {lo}, the latter being the newer default choice
when in doubt.

> You seem to be implying that the distinction is more a question
> of emphasis, that {le} emphasizes the specificity of the dog, and {lo}
> implies its identity doesn't matter?

That seems to be the case. The role of {lo} as a completely generic
gadri (which is how it's defined in xorlo) would be to plainly form a
sumti by taking the x1 of a selbri. No semantic additives. What's to
be read from {lo mensi} above, for example, is that there is such
mensi1 that constitutes the truth of the sentence. How particular this
mensi1 is, may be inferred from the sentence's effective particularity
itself. {la .alis. co'a tatpi lo nu ...} is a fairly specific
statement, which becomes the context for its component terms (sumti,
sumtcita) that would otherwise be understood as more general
references. {lo mensi} in this sentence thus refers to not "mensi1" in
general but "mensi1 next to whom Alice has been sitting on a river
side and doing nothing such that Alice is getting tired". This
specifying mechanism is mutual between the terms: {lo mensi} is
understood in terms of {la .alis.}, {lo rirxe}, etc., {lo rirxe} in
terms of {lo mensi}, {la .alis.}, etc., and so on.

So, if {lo} itself doesn't detail the sumti's identity, it also
suggests that specificities might be surmised from the context.


mu'o mi'e tijlan

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