[lojban-beginners] What does la'e mean?

[Yuval Harel <yuvalh@hotpop.com>]

I'm somewhat confused about the meaning of la'e.
> From what I've seen, la'e seems to have two distinct and contradictory 
uses:

1) Operating on a name, la'e transforms it into the/a referent of that 
name, e.g. {mi tcidu la'e zoi gy. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul .gy.}.
This usage maintains {da cmene la'e da} for all {da}.
It is also consistent with the definition of la'e in the cmavo list, namely 
"the referent of (indirect pointer); uses the referent of a sumti as the 
desired sumti".

2) Operating on an utterance, la'e transforms it into the/a meaning of that 
utterance. From what Iv'e seen, it appears that la'e in la'edi'u is always 
understood to have that meaning. For example {mi tcidu lo cukta .i la'edi'u 
xamgu} is understood to mean that my reading of the book is good, not that 
something named "I read a book" is good, as expected by interpretation no. 
1. This usage maintains {la'e da smuni da} for all {da}.
I don't see how this usage is consistent with the definition of la'e in the 
cmavo list, except by an illojbanically blurry understanding of the word 
"referent".

How can both these usages be correct? Am I missing something?
I would guess that only 1 is correct, since I can't see any other way to 
say {la'eda} that is less wordy than {le se cmene be da}, while 2 appears 
to be used only in {la'edi'u}, which is just like {lesu'u go'i} (isn't it?) 
.
On the other hand, I do see a lot of {la'edi'u}s around.