Re: use of ko'a

["Stefan \"1of3\" Koch" <OneOfThree@gmx.net>]

And Rosta wrote:

> Translate English "They went." I can see two ways:
>
> 1. ko'a klama
> 2. le du cu klama
>
> Neither uses anaphora, and I cannot see any way of using anaphora.

You can use a description though:

- le za'emei cu klama

Which is better since it translates the plurality of they into lojban.

You could also use {da} or a BY. cmavo if you have some idea how to call
THEM. {ledu} sounds quite strange to me. If I had to make a decision between
{ko'a} and {ledu} I would use {ko'a}.



lojban-out@lojban.org wrote:

> Who went?  "They" is anaphora, it's only meaningful in English when we've
> already been talking about some group.

That's obviously wrong. Imagine a novell that starts with "They ran around
the corner. ...". And you read one and a half pages before you know who THEY
are or why they run around corners.
And if this wasn't possible, why would have linguists invented the term
"kataphoric"?

> 3. klama
>
> which doesn't tell us a thing about who went, but neither does unbound
ko'a.
> If you're going to have to glork who ko'a is, then why don't you just use
zo'e
> the way it's intended?

The difference is that {zo'e} doesn't show that I have somebody special in
mind.

mu'omi'e ctefan.