On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Stela Selckiku
<selckiku@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 6:22 PM, Jonathan Jones <
eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
> My understanding of what lo and le currently mean:
>
> lo = a
> le = the
>
> Use le when you're talking about a specific thing.
> My simplified understanding is:
>
> lo = the OR a
> le = the
>
> So I pretty much just always use lo
Unfortunately the real version of this chart goes:
lo = a OR the
le = the OR a
So it's not very helpful. ;)
The distinctions are somewhat similar, but they're also at angles to
each other. The definiteness of something marked with "le" is in the
mind of the speaker, it states that they have a particular referent in
mind. The definiteness of something marked with "the" is in the mind
of the listener, it states that the referent has been established as a
stable one in the conversation.
Suppose in English we are talking about something generic, and we have
no particular member of the class in mind. For instance suppose we're
talking generically about bananas. I might say "I like it, in
general, when I eat a banana. The banana goes into my mouth, and I
chew on the banana, and I taste the banana." The banana has become
"the" banana, even though it's a generic banana and not any particular
one. In this case the banana would need to stay in "lo" the entire
time in Lojban (if you kept describing it-- it'd more likely become
"by" or something). If you ever switch to "le" the implication has
become that there is some particular banana we're talking about.
Conversely, if we're talking about a particular banana in English, we
wouldn't use "the" the first time we introduce it to the conversation.
If you just start off a conversation by saying "I ate the banana" the
person you're talking to might respond, "wait, what banana are we
talking about here?" By using "the" you're implying that all the
participants in the conversation already know what banana we're
talking about. In Lojban though it does make sense to start a
conversation by saying "mi pu citka le badna", I ate some particular
banana. You can even reinforce the fact that the banana you're
talking about is new to the conversation by saying "mi pu citka le
bi'u badna", I ate a particular banana which I have not yet mentioned
in this conversation.
The distinction in English a/the is very closely captured by the
distinction between "bi'u" and "bi'u nai", but it's not at all the
same distinction as lo/le. Expecting the Lojban articles to perform
the new information / old information function of English articles
just because they're in a similar place in the grammar is just
terribly malglico, sorry. :)
I was referring to the fact that "the" and "a" are the definite and indefinite articles in English, in similar manner to lo and le, and not to, well, basically any of what you just said. In particular, my use of the word "the" in both this sentence and the previous, wherein the "wait, what banana are you talking about?" problem you mentioned is not occurring.
CLL 13:13:
> The uses of “bi'u” and “bi'unai” correspond to one of the uses of the English articles
> “the” and “a/an”. An English-speaker telling a story may begin with “I saw a man who
> ...”. Later in the story, the same man will be referred to with the phrase “the man”.
> Lojban does not use its articles in the same way: both “a man” and “the man” would
> be translated “le nanmu”, since the speaker has in mind a specific man. However,
> the first use might be marked “le bi'u nanmu”, to indicate that this is a new man, not
> mentioned before. Later uses could correspondingly be tagged “le bi'unai nanmu”.
mi'e .telselkik. mu'o
--