[lojban] da broda, ko'a broda, da bu'a, zo'e co'e

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

We often use the combination of "da/de/di" &
"broda/brode/brodi/brodo/brodu" when we describe the grammar by way of
syntactically indicating but not semantically specifying the sumti &
selbri spaces. For example:

  da broda lo nu brode kei de lo brodi di

That is, some of us (including myself) tend to use a pair of "da/..."
& "broda/..." to explain the general structure of a particular
expression or to suggest how to put together whatever sumti or selbri
for a certain form of expression.

Some nintadni would then likely get the impression that

  whatever sumti <-- da
  whatever selbri <-- broda

and perhaps, with the gimmicks of LE-sumtification and ME-selbrification, that

  me da (is-whatever) = broda
  lo broda (that which is-whatever) = da

That notion might also be informally driven by the appearance that
"da" and "broda" share an identical syllable.

The whole assumed correspondence between "da" & "broda" wouldn't be
correct, however. "da/..." are BOUND VARIABLEs, while "broda/..." are
ASSIGNABLE PRO-FORMs", which is an important distinction to make
regarding the practice of quantification. Also, there is the
selbri-type of bound variables -- "bu'a/bu'e/bu'i" -- and the
sumti-type of assignable pro-forms -- "ko'a/ko'e/ko'i/...". That is:

  "broda" (assignable pro-form) aligns more with "ko'a" (assignable
pro-form) than with "da" (bound variable)

and

  "da" (bound variable) aligns more with "bu'a" (bound variable) than
with "broda" (assignable pro-form)

These alignments may be comparable to that of "zo'e" & "co'e" as well.

With that in mind, which of the following combinations would most
finely substitute for the oft-used "da broda" in generalizing
grammatical structures:

  ko'a broda
  da bu'a
  zo'e co'e


mu'o mi'e tijlan

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