[lojban-beginners] Re: the articles "le" and "lo"

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 8/10/06, Michael Graff <m.graff@freenet.de> wrote:
> Hello Lojban enthusiasts!

coi fi'i

> Before I'll spend a lot of work on
> learning this language, I want to be convinced that lojban is indeed
> thoughtfully designed.

Lojban is pretty well designed, but if you expect perfection, you are
bound to be disappointed. The good news is that whatever blemishes
it has can mostly be safely ignored. (Of course every one has different
ideas about what constitutes a blemish.)

> The concern I want to explain in this article is my confusion about the
> articles "lo" and "le" - very basic ingredients of lojban, which should
> be well defined und clearly comprehensible. I hope you can help me to
> unravel the fog which threatens the yet growing flame of interest and
> trust in lojban (what a metaphor; I warned you about my English).

My advice: use {lo} and forget about {le} until you are quite comfortable
with {lo}. Many languages, such as Russian or Chinese, don't have any
articles at all. Understanding how {lo} works will probably be easiest for
speakers of those languages, because they won't be confused by
preconceptions from the use of articles in their native language. Russian
does have grammatical number though, so maybe the use of {lo} will be
easiest for Chinese speakers (I don't speak Russian or Chinese, so there
might be some other difficulties involved that I'm not considering.)
Anything you want to say should be sayable with {lo} only. {le} is just
a convenient shortcut for later, when you find that using {lo} means you
need to add too many restrictions, so you can say {le dacti} instead
of {lo dacti poi mi ca ca'o pensi ke'a zi'e poi mi jinvi lo du'u do ka'e
smadi lo du'u ke'a du ma kau zi'e poi ...} or whatever.


> * "lo P" means: There exists such objects x_1, x_2, ... , x_i so that
> the predicate P x_1, x_2, ..., x_i is true AND the bridi in which the
> sumti "lo P" is used is true (or should be true in order to..., if the
> bridi is an command) if x_1 is used as the sumti at the denoted place.

That may work, as long as you are not led astray by the "there exists..."
The "really is" of {lo} has nothing to do with existence in the real world,
{lo xanri} for example refers to imaginary things. If you mean "there exists
in the universe of discourse such objects..." then there's no problem.
Maybe that's all you meant, but sometimes people get confused by the
"really is" into thinking {lo broda} comes with a {lo broda cu zasti} claim
embedded, which of course it does not.

> Example: "lo prenu cu pensi" means that there are x_1, x_2 so that x1 is
> a person who thinks/considers/cogitates/reasons/is pensive
> about/reflects upon subject/concept x2 (which is the only certain truth
> according to Descartes).

Without further context, I'd translate {lo prenu cu pensi} into English
as "people think".

(Descartes was certain that he thought, but was he certain that he was
a person, that there were other people, that other people thought? If
so, then maybe there were more truths than one about which he was
certain.)


> I'll be glad if somebody helps me and clarifies this matter for a lojban
> newbie who is eager to learn.

I hope my comments were of some help.

mu'o mi'e xorxes