Subject: RE: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 01:44:36 +0100

Xod:
> > And what does {le'e} mean? Well, if there is a specific group of one or
> > more individuals, {le} refers to each member of the group individually,
> > {lei} refers to them collectively, somewhat as if you ignore the boundaries
> > between the individuals, while {le'e} refers to the one individual you get
> > if you abstract away from the differences that individuate the different
> > individuals -- in other words, it is the archetype of the group.
>
> Thank you for clarifying lo'e. However, I am not sure that I like the
> difference between lo'e and le'e being much different than the difference
> between lo and le (or lo'i, le'i).
>
> lo'e remna = categorial individual of lo remna
> le'e remna = categorial individual of le remna

That's is what I meant.

lo remna = each member of lo'i remna
le remna = each member of le'i remna
lo'e remna = categorial individual of lo'i remna
le'e remna = categorial individual of le'i remna

> And let the difference reflect whatever difference there is between lo
> remna and le remna. Actual Lojban usage seems to have contracted le and
> lo into le. If you want to re-assert the difference, le/lo is where you
> should apply your energy.

I do want to wage war against excessive use of {le}. Doubtless it'll be
futile, but still it might be worthwhile. The problem is that people are
influenced by phonology when choosing 'default' forms, and hence 'le' and
'lo' feel more default than lei/loi/le'e/lo'e. Yet for singleton categories,
'le' and 'lo' are actually the least appropriate, involving redundant
quantification, and even lei/loi wrongly imply the relevance of a
distributive/collective distinction. So for singleton categories, le'e/lo'e
should be the default. At any rate, I myself will now be ditching {tu'odu'u} and
start using {lo'e du'u} instead.

--And.