[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le
On 5/5/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/5/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess that it's whatever Lojban structure is used to express the
> difference between "the cat ran to the HOUSE", "the cat RAN to the
> house", and "the CAT ran to the house", as they are used in English.
That's {ba'e}, but I don't think {ba'e} helps for "is THE neighborhood
to live in".
At least I don't see why emphasizing a gadri in Lojban should have the
same effect that an emphatic "the" has in English. (Spanish works just
like English in this regard, so it's not something peculiar to English, but
still, I don't see why it would be transferred to Lojban.)
"it is THE neighborhood" probably has something to do with "it is the
ideal form" (though I don't think that Lojban has an ideal form in the
same way that it has a typical form.)
> > It is perfectly possible to use {le nobli turni be la uels} for the real
> > Prince of Wales, since it is a particular, specified nobli turni be
> > la uels, and that would be the first interpretation that comes to mind
> > in the absence of context to the contrary.
>
> What's {lo nobli turni be la uels} ?
"Noble governor(s) of Wales". If we know Wales only has one such,
then we might understand it as "the (current?) noble governor of Wales".
> > {lo} is always a good substitute for {loi}. If {loi} did not exist, I wouldn't
> > miss it.
>
> This is perhaps my point. I theorize that the proper intent of {loi}
> vs {lo} has been shifted into {lo} vs {le}.
{loi} has had a very shifty history indeed, but I don't think along the lines
you suggest. In any case, the meaning of {le} has been exceptionally stable
among gadri, it still has basically the same meaning that it also has in
Loglan.
My current understanding of {loi} (I'm not sure I can call it the current
consensus, but maybe yes given that pc agrees) is that it simply
indicates nondistributivity. {loi ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno}
"three men (together) carried the piano" vs. {ro lo ci nanmu cu
bevri le pipno}, "each of three men carried the piano".
{lo}, being semantically empty for me, does not indicate distributivity
nor non-distributivity, so it can be used for both cases.
> My {loi} is your {lo}, and my {lo} is your {le}.
I'm not sure your {loi} is different from my {loi}, I'd need to see more
examples.
In any case, when my {loi} is correct, my {lo} is also correct, if more
vague. My {lo} just doesn't carry any indication about distributivity.
> You seem to have no place for your {loi}.
I do, but in my experience distributivity seems to be almost always obvious
from context, and using {loi} brings other problems with it (like for example
you can't apply a distributive and a non-distributive predicate to the same
sumti, "the three men were wearing red shirts (each his own) and carried
the piano (the three together)", so I simply use {lo/le} unless indicating
non-distributivity is really crucial and non-obvious for some reason.
> Your definitions:
>
> le - {le labno} - "the wolf ran away" (specific wolf) + "what I'm calling a"
> lo - {lo labno} - "wolves faces extinction" (general wolf)
Not always, but it covers it.
> lei - ?
> loi - ?
These both indicate nondistributivity.
I see what you mean, and perhaps I was wrong to use loi in some of
these cases (e.g. "loi - {loi labno} - wolves face extinction (general
wolf)"). In that case I should have described them as {lo ro}, which
points towards where the confusion arises. I think it's that ro is the
default inner quantifier of lo, and so some things that are true for
the default case extend into cases where numbers are specified.
{lo ro cribe cu citka lo ro jbari} - "(all) bears eat berries"
{ro lo cribe cu citka lo ro jbari pe mi} - "(some specific) bears ate
(some unspecific of) my berries"
{ro lo cribe cu citka ro lo ro jbari pe mi} - "(some specific) bears
ate (, specifically,) all my berries"
{ro lo ci cribe cu citka lo ro jbari pe mi} - "three bears ate my
berries" (all of some specific three)
{ci lo ro cribe cu citka lo ro jbari pe mi} - "three bears ate my
berries" (some unspecific of all)
Two questions before I can give a better explanation:
What is the difference between {ro lo ro cribe} and {ro le ro cribe}
by your definition?
How would you say "I mean every last bear in the universe", keeping in
mind that {le pa cribe} would not say anything about the amount of
bears in the universe?
> le'e - ?
> lo'e - ?
I don't have a definite opinion. See
<http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=BPFK+Section%3A+Typicals>
for some discussion on
the problems of the "typicals".
Looks interesting, though I can't translate some of the Lojban that
the examples use.