Re: di'e preti zo nu

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@intermedia.com.ar>]

la robin cusku di'e

>(3)  lo'e merko cu cladu tavla
>(3) would mean that if a person fulfills both the commonly agreed-on
criteria for
>being American and also has characteristics that are actually held by the
majority of
>Americans but not of people in general, that person talks loudly.

You seem to be saying that {lo'e merko} is equivalent to {ro lo fadni be le
ka merko}
= "Every one who is typical as an American". Is that what you mean?

When I have used {lo'e} it has been with a different meaning, and I used it
because I thought that neither {le} nor {lo} made sense, so I needed
something
else and {lo'e} seemed to be the best there was. One much discussed example
I remember was {mi nitcu lo'e tanxe}, "I need a box".

The distinction between the three would be something like this:

(1)    mi nitcu le tanxe
(2)    mi nitcu lo tanxe
(3)    mi nitcu lo'e tanxe

(1) "I need the box." The question "which box?" shouldn't normally need to
be asked because the speaker is assuming that the audience undersands
which box. If the ausience doesn't understand what is it that the speaker is
referring to by {le tanxe} then they have to ask in order to understand the
full
meaning of what the speaker is trying to comunicate.

(2) "There is a box that I need." The question "which box?" has not been
addressed, but it is a valid question. The full meaning of the sentence
is understood without need of identifying which box the speaker needs,
but the audience is being told that there is at least one box which is the
one needed by the speaker.

(3) "I need a box (any box)." The question "which box?" does not make
sense in this case (or rather, the answer is "any one") because there
is no box such that I need that particular one. Here I cannot use {lo}
or {le} and be logically consistent, so I use {lo'e} for lack of anything
else, not because this has all that much to do with typicality. But if this
is right, then {lo'e merko} is not the same as {ro lo fadni be le ka merko}.

>(4)  le'e merko cu cladu tavla
>(4) would mean that a person who corresponds to my idea of an American,
talks loudly.

What would be the difference between {le'e merko} and {le merko}? By "a
person"
do you mean "any person" or "a person I have in mind"?

>If we can agree on and clarify {lo'e} and {le'e}, they could become very
useful tools
>in argument, particularly in avoiding sweeping generalisations etc.

I have found a different use for {lo'e}. I don't know if {lo broda fadni} is
such a
frequently used concept that needs a special shorthand article for it.
Besides
{lo'e broda} is not really all that much shorter than {lo broda fadni}.

co'o mi'e xorxes