Re: di'e preti zo nu

[Robin Turner <robin@bilkent.edu.tr>]

la xorxes. cusku di'e

>
> No, If I were to drop articles {lei} is the only one I'd keep. {le'i} and
> {lo'i}
> would be the first ones I'd drop.

{.ie} I've never seen any point in these, though perhaps that's because I'm not
a logician.  I suppose one of Lojban's strengths is as a language for
philosophy, so philosophers might well want to use these to talk about sets.


> (There's also the function of {lo'e}, but I'm not yet confident that
> I understand that one.)
>

I also find {lo'e} and {le'e} a bit confusing.  {lo'e} is described in the cmavo
list as "the typical one(s) that really is (are) ..." which implies that we have
a (subjective) judgement of typicality on top of on objective classification.
{le'e} is "the stereotype of those described as ..." which implies an objective
stereotypicality (since one person cannot create a stereotype) on top of a
subjective classification.  Confusing indeed.


> I would agree if we were starting from scratch. I would use a single
> article to identify a sumti, and nothing else. But that's not how Lojban
> works. In Lojban, articles serve at least two other functions besides
> identifying a sumti: to distinguish collective vs. distributive plurals,
> lei vs. le, and the le vs. lo distinction, whatever we want to call it.
>

What is called for is a default / all-purpose article, analogous to {nu} as the
all-purpose abstractor.  I think {le} serves this purpose quite well, though
Jorge would of course disagree.

co'o mi'e robin.