[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

[Ed Blake <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:

> ...
>
> {lo cribe cu citka lo jbari} - bear eat berry
> {lo'e cribe cu citka lo jbari} - bears eat berries (the typical bear
> eats berries)
> {le cribe cu citka lo jbari} - a bear ate berries (or maybe I think
> that bears will come and eat berries, whatever)
> 
> ...yes? Confusing.
> 

.u'i As a novice I would like to get into this conversation and muddy the
waters a bit!

In my understanding the difference between lo cribe and le cribe is that when
I say "lo cribe cu citka lo jbari" I mean Actual bears eat Actual berries -
while when I say "le cribe cu citka le jbari" I mean "there is some thing I'm
calling a bear (which may or may not be vaguely resemble a bear) is eating
something I'm calling 'berries' (regardless of whether they are really apples
or papaya or people)".

lo == the thing which (apparently) really is X
le == the thing I'm calling X (which is not required to be a real X)

So the usefulness of le is that you can describe things by their
characteristics/behavior or any word you want to apply to them.
While with lo you mean what you (exactly) say - no metaphor, no simile, no
puns, etc.

So is that it, or am I totaly decieved?


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