[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le

["Jorge Llambías" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 5/5/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/5/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/5/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 5/5/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Used before a noun, and generally stressed, to emphasize one of a group
> > > > or type as the most outstanding or prominent: considered Lake Shore Drive
> > > > to be the neighborhood to live in these days.
> > > >
> >  I don't really know how to get quite the same effect. {ba'e} won't
> > do either. I suppose one has to rely on an explicit predicate:
> > {jinvi lo du'u la leik cor draiv cu ralju lo jarbu lo ka se xabju kei ca lo
> > cabna} or something.
>
> 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 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.

> 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".

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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