[lojban-beginners] Re: le vinji vs lo vinji

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

On 8/14/07, Vid Sintef <picos.picos@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/14/07, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, the extended sense should fit the place structure. That's why
> > I have problems with the overspecific place structures given to
> > some gismu.
>
> Won't {zi'o} help?

In theory, yes. In practice, I don't think {zi'o} works very well
because pragmatically it's completely backwards, calling
attention to what shouldn't be there in the first place.

> I'm having some difficulty in elaborating my point in English. I'll
> take another example. Suppose a child has come upon this spot:
> http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/17/disneyland_wideweb__470x349,0.jpg
> The child says: {.uacai lo gerku .e lo datka .e lo smacu cu kakne le
> nu remna dansu be lo zgike}. His utterance is not specifically
> addressing the three characters (le/la gerku, le/la datka, le/la
> smacu) he is looking at; rather he wants to mean that "at least one of
> all" (su'o lo ro) dogs and ducks and mouses in general can dance like
> humans do. But in reality it is not {lo gerku .e lo datka .e lo smacu}
> which are dancing there; it's humans themselves (right?). The child
> adds: {xu go'i}. Now what should his parents answer to that innocent
> question?

That's up to the parents, I guess. What would you answer in English
to the corresponding question in English? It is no different in Lojban. Is
Mickey Mouse a mouse, or is he a human in disguise? There is no absolute
answer to that question, it depends on the context, on whether you are
making some kind of scientific or literal statement or whether you are
being playful, etc. Depending on the age of the child, you may choose
to put yourself in the fantasy world of the child and play along, or maybe
you are in a bad mood and you may choose to burst his bubble, or
whatever. There is no difference between Lojban and English or any other
language there. The idea that Lojban is a language exclusively for the use
of literal minded robots is not correct, it is a human language like any other.
Its peculiarity is that it has an unambiguous parseable syntax, but what you
are asking is not really about syntax.

In particular, the choice between {lo} and {le} hinges on whether the referent
in question is determinate or not, not on what kind of thing it is.
The fact that
{le}, because of the determinateness of its referent, needs to rely less on
the semantic content of the description than {lo} does is a secondary issue.
It is not the important distinction between {lo} and {le}.

mu'o mi'e xorxes