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Re: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le
On 5/4/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
What does it mean to have the
bear "in mind"? Is it opposed to, say, "any bear", or "bears in
general", or "bearness", or "all bears typically"?
Yes. (Except for "bearness", because lo cribe has to be something
that does cribe, and bearness doesn't.)
Because (unless I'm
mistaken) Lojban handles those cases in other ways.
Not in all cases, but even if it did, {lo} encompasses them all, in the
sense that an untensed selbri encompasses all tenses, or that a
sumti not marked for number encompasses plural and singular.
{lo cribe} simply does not distinguish between "any bear", "bears in
general", "all bears typically", "a certain bear", "certain bears",
"some bears", "most bears", etc. {lo} might as well not be there,
if it weren't for the purely syntactic need to convert a selbri into a sumti.
It adds no semantic content. {lo} is similar to {cu}, nothing but a pure
structure word. {le} is more like {ca} or {pu}, it does add something
of its own in addition to doing the same structural job of the empty {lo}.
{le cribe cu citka le jbari} suggests that I'm focusing on the unique
thing, to say something about it.
Well, it could be several bears too, but your point stands. It is about
a certain bear or certain bears in particular that I am saying something
about.
{lo cribe cu citka le jbari} suggests that I'm focusing on bears in
general, to say something about them.
Among other possibilitties, yes. It's too vague without more context. Just
as you have to guess the time this is describing.
If I was given that sentence out of context, my interpretation might be
"bears ate the berries" (as opposed to dogs or racoons). I would not
take it as a general statement describing what bears usually do because
they are unlikely to be so related to some particular berries I have in mind.
Let's say that a girl runs her car into something. This was witnessed
by the girl's father, and by a bigot. The girls father says "THAT girl
can't drive" (le), the bigot says "that GIRL can't drive" (lo).
Is this an accurate demonstration? (I prepare for the response "no,
both should use 'le', because they have a specific woman in mind" - in
which case I would ask "so le is used when you have actually
_encountered_ the certain thing?")
Both could use {lo} or {le} in that case. {lo} because it is indeed a girl
and that is all that {lo} requires. The more informative {le} is also
possible if they are saying something about the particular girl in question.
If the bigot wants to make a statement concluding something about girls
in general, {le} would not work.
I would like to have what "in mind" means explained.
I think {le} indeed serves to preclude the "any" or "in general"
interpretation that {lo} does not preclude.
mu'o mi'e xorxes