[lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?

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

On 4/11/07, ANDREW PIEKARSKI <totus@rogers.com> wrote:
> - lo kadnygu'e
> - le pongu'e
> - la jugygu'e
>
> Which article is the right one?

There is no "the" right one here. They are all grammatically correct, and
they can all be used, with different effects.

{la} indicates that what follows is a name. It basically ignores the meaning
of the word that follows, it only uses the word to name something that may
or may not have anything to do with what the word means. Sometimes the
word used has a meaning of its own, but it plays no significant role in the
use of the word as a name. Compare with English names such as Brown,
Sitting Bull, United States, etc. They are English words, they may or may
not describe what they name, but whether or not they describe what they
name is basically irrelevant. What's important is that they are conventionally
used to name someone or something.

{le} uses the word that follows as a description. In this case you do care
about the meaning, but the meaning is used as a means to help your
interlocutor identify the thing you have in mind.

{lo} doesn't really add anything. Here the proper meaning of the word is
central, and {lo} is only needed as a syntactic device, to convert it from
a brivla into a sumti.

mu'o mi'e xorxes