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Re: [lojban-beginners] Question about {roda}



That makes sense.  {ro} should behave the same for both: {ro prenu cu xebni mi} and {ro flira cu spati}.

If you want to restrict the {ro} of something you can always use an inner quantifier right?  {ro lo ci prenu cu xebni mi}.  Or a tanru which also effectively restricts the {ro} by means of narrowing what it is that you are taking "all" of.  {ro lo srana prenu cu xebni mi}.

ta'o over the past couple of days I've begun to realize that {srana} can be an absurdly handy word for when you feel like being lazy and vague but still want to be grammatical.  Don't want to talk about all the dogs in the world?  No problem, just throw a {srana} in there and it's like a big flashing light saying "you know what I'm talking about".  It's like the selbri/tanru-ing equivalent of {tu'a} or something.

2011/2/18 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Michael Turniansky
<mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   I respectfully disagree. Da and friends are specifically existential
> variables.  If they are not qualified with NOI or GOI, or some other
> mechanism, "ro da" MUST refer to everything, talked about or not.  I would
> prefer "ro zo'e" or even "lo romei" to unqualified "ro da" if you are only
> talking about somethings in the universe.  The purpose of "da" is to make
> existential claims, and youundercut that if you use it for something else.
> (So yes, "ro prenu cu xebni mi" and not "roda xebni mi" for "everybody hates
> me")

But when someone says "everybody hates me" they usually don't mean to
include themselves, or people who have never heard of them. There's
usually some implicit restriction involved in the context: "everybody
relevant to what I'm saying". Not every person who has ever lived, or
ever will live or ever could live, or imaginary persons, or persons
that perhaps exist in another planet, or... So if you think that "ro
da" is bad because it is too general, then "ro prenu" is just as bad,
since a mere restriction to people is nowhere near enough.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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