[lojban-beginners] Re: personal pronouns

[Adam COOPER <adamgarrigus@gmail.com>]

The 3d person pronoun is an issue on which Lojban differs quite
markedly from Indo-European languages. -- The options available, as
far as I can tell, are as follows:
* ko'a, ko'e, ..., fo'o, fo'u (specified by goi)
* vo'a, ..., vo'u (x1 {,..., x5} of the current bridi)
* ri, ra, ru (last sumti, earlier sumti, even earlier sumti)
* the initial of the sumti in question

Ya don't really get to think about them in terms of <specify only
gender & number>; that's Indo-Euro thinking.

mu'o mi'e la .adam.


On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:32:43 -0500, Matt Arnold <mattarn@123.net> wrote:
> While looking for personal pronouns, I found {mi} me, {do} you, {mi'a} we-not-you, {mi'o} me-and-you, {ma'a} we-with-you, {do'o} you-and-others.
> 
> Is {do'o} a plural "you" like the Spanish "usted"? Or is it only to be used when some of those it refers to are not among the listener(s)?
> 
> How do we speak about the third person without including the first or second person? I know there are no gender-based pronouns such as "he" or "she" but I expected a genderless third-person pronoun and a plural to mean "they." Are such pronouns translated using {ko'a} he/she/it/they? I know that can apply, but doesn't it have to be assigned a referent with {goi}? Is that required? What if we want to leave {ko'a} unspecified except for a gender or number -- how is that expressed?
> 
> -epkat