2011/2/23 Jorge Llambías
<jjllambias@gmail.com>
2011/2/22 Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>:
>
> I don't understand what is so onerous about simply SAYING "ro le prenu" if
> that's what you mean.
We were comparing "ro da" vs "ro prenu", and my point was that the
restriction to prenu was in many contexts insignificant compared to
other contextual restrictions, so "ro prenu" doesn't solve the
putative problems with "ro da". English forces you to distinguish
"everybody" from "everything" in the same way that it forces you to
distinguish "he" and "she" from "it", Lojban doesn't.
As for "le", I don't really know how it really works. Suppose you want
to say "Everybody will love your dress at the party tomorrow", but I
have no idea who will be there at the party tomorrow. Can I use "le
prenu" to refer to the people who will be at the party, even though I
don't have any particular person in mind? Is "le" about particular
values you have in mind or about particular restrictions you have in
mind? I don't know. I don't think "le" is well defined, so I don't use
it.
Your nonuse of "le" is well-known, but I think outside the bounds of the beginner's list, which this thread is on. But certainly, why can't "le prenu" mean, "lo prenu poi ba zvati le tersla .u lo prenu poi mi djuno lo du'u ke'a zvati le tersla" [(those persons that will be at the party) whether-or-not (those persons I know will be at the party)]? That's the way I'm defining le to refer to in this instance. I may not people to enumerate who they are, but I can still (mentally) refer to them as "whoever will be at the party". That's the whole point of "le". It basically screams "context dependant".
> You are arbitrarily restricting it to mean exaclty
> whatever it is you think it should be retricted, and explicitly saying so.
> So instead of the listener having to ponder, "Oh, I wonder if the speaker is
> really intended to mean everything, or if he is intending to restrict it to
> some context, and if the latter, what context is it?" He already KNOWS the
> answer to the first part (restricted), and simply has to figure out the
> second part. Whereas if you say "ro prenu" you mean exactly that -- "all
> people, everywhere" No further pondering necessary.
"All people, everywhere" could be more restricted than plain "all
people", because it excludes people that are nowhere. It may also make
you wonder whether you also mean people of every time or whether you
mean to restrict it to the present, since you went to the trouble of
specifying where but not when. I don't think "ro prenu" makes any
reference to places, so it can't mean exactly "all people,
everywhere".
You're playing with semantics, but fine, "all people, real or imagined, past, present, future, multiple time frames, or in no time frame whatsoever, existing other in someplace, more than one place, or no place at all". However you want to put it, or not, you are PRECISELY making my point. If I qualify it, I restrict it. Contrariwise, if I DON'T qualify it, it must be completely unrestricted. QED. "ro prenu" is more qualified, and hence more restrictive than "ro da". "ro le prenu" is even more qualified, and more importnantly, precisly so, to a given set of people, which the speaker may or may not be aware of exactly who is in that set, but can know for a certainity it doesn't include anyone outside of who it intends to include.
--gejyspa