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Re: Some thoughts on Lojban gadri
la bab. cusku di'e
> Jorge explained his understanding of the Lojban gadri of selma'o LE.
> It looks to me that much of what he says is at variance with how
> Lojban has been defined hitherto.
>
>
> lo broda At least one of all things that broda.
>
> Yes, but bear in mind that the {su'o} and {ro} are merely *default*
> values. Unless explicitly specified as {su'o} and {ro}, an unadorned
> {lo broda} utterance may (but usually does not) imply some other value
> for them.
No, I think not. If the quantifiers are omitted (or either of them), the
default values take over. This is not one of those places where "unspecified
means 'glork it from context'"; unspecified quantifiers have the same meaning
as if specified to be "su'o" and "ro".
> It doesn't say which one(s), but the question
> is pertinent and has an answer in principle
> (which doesn't mean that the speaker has to know it).
>
> It is only in this recent thread that anyone has suggested that `which
> one' is of any relevance to {le} or {lo} other than as a help in
> making translations into English. (Russian is more like Lojban since
> it lacks an equivalent of `a' and `the'.)
This, plus what follows (elided here) is equivalent to saying that Lojban
has no markers for +definite and -definite: there is no telling whether
"le mlatu" means "the cat" (+specific +definite) or "a certain cat"
(+specific -definite). You have a habit of using "specific" to mean
both +specific and +definite, with resulting mental confusion: I urge you
to re-read my definitions. In brief:
+specific: speaker's intention gives the referent
-specific: referent is found by quantifying over the universe
+definite: listener can identify the referent
-definite: listener cannot identify the referent
--
John Cowan sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
e'osai ko sarji la lojban.