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[lojban] Re: Usage of lo and le
On 5/12/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/12/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I never said that I want to refer to "all bears" unconstrained by
> anything, in fact I've stated that this would usually be the wrong
> thing to do - but that shouldn't mean that one can't do it. No, the
> utility of my inner {ro} is much more obvious when taken in the
> context of the "all bears in the cage" example (which is an "actual"
> example, and which you seem to have ignored), where the referant is
> constrained by something more than "that which is a bear" (e.g. "that
> which is a bear, and that which is in /that/ cage").
That would be {lo ro cribe poi nenri le va selri'u}. It would probably
not include bears that were before or will be later in the cage (although
I can imagine contexts that would make those relevant, as in "all bears
in that cage always end up getting sick, there must be something wrong
with it"). Much less likely would it be that it includes imaginary bears that
are in the cage, though again it would be possible to force it with some
strong context: "Imagine that that cage is full of bears. Now imagine that
all the bears in that cage suddenly turn into monkeys...." I don't think
an expression that in every possible circumstance includes all those
bears would be particularly useful.
What if the relevant bears that we've been talking about for the last
hour are some specific 20 bears, 2 of which are in the cage? (You
strongly suspect that there are more than these 2 bears in the cage.)
{__ ro cribe poi nenri le va selri'u} would say "all of the (those 20
relevant) bears that are in the cage (there are 2)" - but it doesn't
say what I want to say - all of the bears in the cage, whatever number
there is in there, context aside.
The utility of my inner {ro} would be that the listener wouldn't need
to consider context (like those 20 relevant bears), nor be confused by
it where it works against what the speaker is saying (like when I want
to talk about all and potentially not-currently-relevant bears that
are in the cage).
Also, what is the difference between your {L_ cribe}, and your {L_ ro cribe}?
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