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

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

On Thursday 17 February 2011 13:42:46 .arpis. wrote:
> I'm wondering about the usage of {roda} in lojban.  In English, at least,
> "everything" and "everyone" carry an implicit restriction; AFAIK lojban
> does not do that, which makes {roda} without explicit restriction either
> factually incorrect in most cases or useful only in very precise
> conversation.

Neither "da" nor "ma" is restricted to persons or things, as "who" and "what" 
are in English. A word can be implicitly restricted, as in "le cukta be bau 
lo fraso": "lo fraso" here refers to the French language, not a French 
person, which it might refer to elsewhere.

> This has gotten me thinking more about the semantics of {da}. I seem to
> recall that {da}'s binding has bridi scope.
> If I say {da prenu} without a prenex, am I commenting on the existence of a
> man {si} person (to'i damn sexist language creeping in when I don't think
> toi)?
> If I say {roda prenu} without a prenex, am I saying that all "things" in
> the world are people?
> Can I use {ko'a} without having explicitly assigned it e.g. {ko'a noi pendo
> mi co'e} instead of {ko'a goi lo pendo be mi co'e}?

"da prenu" means "there is a person". "roda prenu" means "everything/everyone 
is a person", where "roda" refers to everything in the universe of discourse, 
so unless the universe of discourse consists entirely of persons, it's false.

"ko'a" can be used without being assigned; it's up to the listener to figure 
it out. I did this in le cmalu bloti; "ko'a" refers to the whole crew, or to 
the crew minus the boy, and "ko'e" refers to the boy.

Pierre
-- 
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

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