From: Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:03:48 AM
Subject: [lojban] Re: elliptical sentences
if I'm remembering correctly, under xorlo {lo} means something like "having something to do with", with no implications of actual existence, whether it is in the speakers mind only, or whether it _really is_ a specific instance of whatever it is that you're talking about.
Whereas {le} means that you have a specific thing in mind although I don't believe it makes any truth claims about whether or not it _really is_. So "le gerku" would mean "I have an actual thing in mind that I'm calling 'dog' " while "lo gerku" would mean "there is something that I'm choosing to refer to as 'dog' ".
Did I get that right? It's taken me forever to really get the hang of lo/le.
- Luke Bergen
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:57 AM, John E Clifford
<kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
Oh dar God, what has 'lo' become now
From: Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:09:29 AM
Subject: [lojban] Re: elliptical sentences
On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Pierre Abbat
<phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
On Tuesday 28 July 2009 08:33:56 Michael Turniansky wrote:
> Huh? Am I missing something here? What's elliptical about it?
> --gejyspa
The complete statement would be "The genes for seeing red and green are on the
X chromosome; the gene for seeing blue is on the 7th chromosome". The gene
for seeing red isn't red, so calling it "lo xunre" isn't literally right. Do
I have to say at least "lo xunre co'e"?
Ah, now I understand, and further understand why you mentioned "jgina" in your first message. Taken completely out of context, I had no idea what the English sentence meant. I thought you were just talking about abstract things... well, let's see.. you could certainly get away with saying "le" rather than "lo" since even in xorlo there's no implication that it's actually colored that way.
--gy