[lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?

["Turniansky, Michael" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>]

  komfo,amonan has already addressed this, but just to add a concrete
example or two.  My dog is named "Bear" in English.  When I talk him in
lojban, I use "la cribe", the-one-called-bear (or when directly
addressing him, "doi cribe").  I could have used "la ber", "la crib" "la
rib" But the last two would have phonemic value that isn't his (I would
not pronounce his name "Shreeb" or "Reeb") I can never say "lo cribe"
because no matter what, he is not actually a bear, nor would "le cribe"
be right 99% of the time, because he is a dog, not a bear, and it would
be hard for me to describe him as a bear (except perhaps metaphorically,
after establishing he ate like a bear, or if I saw him in the dark and
thought he was a bear, etc.).  So I might say to my kids, "ko curmi le
nu la cribe cu klama le bartu" ("Let Bear go out") or "ko curmi le nu le
gerku cu klama le bartu" ("Let the dog go out") but never "ko curmi le
nu le cribe cu klama le bartu" ("Let the bear go out").

  With a country, such as kadnygu'e, you can use "la" because the
country is NAMED that (in lojban, but you can also use anything the
country is named in any other language, but then you would have to use
the final consonant, such as la KAnadas, since it would otherwise have a
lojbanic meaning or non-meaning (for example "ka na da" would be a an
ungrammatical lojbanid construct, because "na" can't precede "da")), but
you can also use "lo" or "le" because the country REALLY IS that, and
you can certainly DESCRIBE the country as that.  But "la" runs into
problems because other things may share that name, as in: la mergu'e pu
xamgu se zgike ca le prulamdei ("America played-music well yesterday").
Here I'm obviously talking about the band by that name, but if I used
"le" instead of "la", I must be talking about the country itself, in
some way (say, for example there was a national sing-along in which a
great many Americans took part....)

              Clearer?
               --gejyspa


    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org [mailto:lojban-beginners-
> bounce@lojban.org] On Behalf Of ANDREW PIEKARSKI
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 6:24 PM
> To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?
> 
> I guess that after this exchange of messages, I'm still not clear.  I
> thought the context was obvious since I mentioned the country names
came
> from Wikipedia (I understand I should stay clear of it from now on).
> 
> In Wikipedia, each country has a page describing it.  So the typical
> sentences would be:
> 
> - China is a country in Asia which....
> - The area of France is......
> - Canada is bordered by...
> 
> So the correct lojbanic names seem to be (Jorge):
> 
> - le or la jugygu'e
> - le or la fasygu'e
> - le or la kadnygu'e
> 
> But which is preferable?  And if it is la, doesn't that mean that the
name
> is a cmene - and should end with a consonant?
> 
> A separate issue that has come up is the choice of rafsi.  Can I use
> jugygug instead (Philip), and does that effect the choice of article?
> 
> As a general comment, I'm finding some of the answers difficult to
follow.
> Examples (complete sentences) would really help.
> 
> - Andrew
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "Turniansky, Michael" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>
> To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 10:56:16 AM
> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Now what?
> 
> 
> Both Pierre and Jorge are right, of course, about "la".  It can name
> something that shares the same name the country (e.g. the band
America),
> and lo would definitely be correct if you wanted to unambiguously
state
> you are talking about the country.  "le" would be useful if, for
> example, as a talk show host, you really mean "that portion of the
> country that agrees with me, the rest of which isn't really America".
I
> retract my previous statement.
>                 --gejyspa
>