Re: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

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

On 5/5/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> My suggested definition does not assert that le and lo have /anything/
> to do with "the" and "a", which you've clearly demonstrated are
> handled by {bi'u}, so I don't understand what you're illustrating.

I wasn't specifically addressing your definition, I was just offering
some more food for thought.

I wouldn't say that {le} and {lo} have nothing to do with "the" and "a",
I think there is a fairly strong correaltion, as follows:

English "a" almost always will best be translated to Lojban as {lo}.
English "the" more often than not will best be translated as {le}.
Lojban {le} almost always will best be translated to English as "the".
Lojban {lo} does not have one best correspondence in English, I would
say bare plural, "a" and "the" all have their fair chances of being the best
translation, and then there are some other contenders like "some" as well.
Bare plural in English will almost always be best translated as {lo}.
"Some" in English will sometimes be best translated as {lo} and sometimes
as {su'o}.

Anyway, to address your definitions:

> {le crino} - some specific thing that (by my definition) is a bear.
> {lo crino} - some specific thing that (by actual definition) is a bear.

(crino->cribe)
I'm bothered by "specific" here. {le cribe} is used to refer to a specific
bear (or several specific bears), but {lo crino} is not used to refer
to specific bear or bears, in general it is used for non-specific reference.

Now, your definition does not really speak of specific bears, only of
specific things, and bears, nonspecifically as bears, can be said to be a
specific thing. I may be talking about a specific thing, namely bears, but
at the same time not talking about any specific bear at all. Is that
what you meant? In any case, even if not wrong, I think using the word
"specific" in the definition of {lo} is a very bad idea. It will bring more
confusion than clarity.

On the other hand, {le cribe} does refer to specific bears, and your
definition of {le} doesn't mention that. {le cribe} cannot be used to refer
to a specific thing like "humans in general" even if by some quirk of
the context I'm calling humans bears. It could only refer to some specific
humans (that I happen to describe as bears). So I couldn't use {le cribe cu
palci} to mean that humans are evil by nature, but I could use it to mean
that some particular humans (which ones should be clear from the context)
are evil.

mu'o mi'e xorxes