Re: [lojban] la .alis.

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:14 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> If it is really true that the language has degenerated to the point that 'lo' and 'le' are merged as one,

It hasn't, and I didn't say it had. I said I would replace all
instances of "le" by "lo".

You said that would be a degradation, while replacing all instances of
"lo" by "le" might be an improvement.

I just don't see how ending up with only "le" could be an improvement
while ending up with only "lo" would be a degradation. It seems to me
that the final result would be identical.

> the replacing one by the other is indeed pointless.  And, if it is true 'le nu' was regularly used improperly, the replacing it in most places by lo might be some improvement.

Yes, "nu", "ka", "du'u", indeed all NUs, were used practically
exclusively with "le", just look at any oldish text (say more than
five years).

> Unfortunately, that move does mean that we would go from something we has some idea about ('le nu') even if it did not strictly apply, to one we have no clear idea about at all ('lo nu' or 'lo' anything, for that matter).

Well, speaking for myself, I have a more clear idea about "lo" than about "le":

"lo" converts a selbri into a sumti. Nothing else.

"le" also converts a selbri into a sumti, but it does something else
that is hard to pinpoint exactly. It adds a notion of specificity or
definiteness. Of course I have some intuitions about what that means,
but trying to specify exactly what it means is hard, as anyone whose
native language does not have definite articles finds out when
learning one that does.

> Btw, I hope the first protasis is not true, that in the proliferation of picky details to fix earlier goofs, we have lost one of the big distinctions that was one of the things done right from almost the beginning.

"le" is still +specific, if that's what you mean.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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