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Right. Let's see if I've got this correct.lo'e is defined by the phrase {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko}. Any definition of lo'e which is incompatible with that phrase violates the baseline, makes a nonsense of any distinction between lo'e and le'e, is doomed to be shouted down, and in my opinion (and not just my opinion) can sod off.
The concern is that, because a prominent Lojbanist has hijacked lo'e to his own ends, lo'e has stopped being "member of the gadri paradigm, in paradigmatic relation with le'e and lo", and has started being "that cmavo Jorge uses." This is intolerable, and Lojbanists who wish to uphold the baseline have a duty to uphold the proper lo'e. I'm now of the opinion that the rot has set in so greatly, that a clarification on lo'e needs to be included in a note in the lessons.
Jboskeists of sundry persuasions have been argling about lo'e for years, and frankly, I tuned out long ago. So if this has been said before, no apologies from me: it was your responsibility to keep things coherent enough that I not tune out. This certainly includes pc, who as far as I can tell hasn't got a paedagogical bone in his body.
Nonetheless, pc's first stab summary of the chocolate debate may have twisted and turned and gotten people sidetracked (like just about all his interventions), but does seem to contain what the point of lo'e is.
When I say {mi nelci loi cakla}, what do I mean?
su'o da poi cakla ku'o
su'o de poi temci ku'o
su'o di poi stuzi ku'o zo'u:
mi nelci da ca de vi di
In English: "I like some chocolate".
Not the claim pne wanted. What about changing the quantifier?
so'e da poi cakla ku'o
so'e de poi temci ku'o
so'e di poi stuzi ku'o zo'u:
mi nelci da ca de vi di
In English: "I like most chocolate, most of the time".
That's *almost* the generic claim "I like chocolate". But again, not quite.
What does "I like chocolate" mean? It means 'chocolate' is being
taken as the exemplar. It's an abstraction out of the whole bunch of
chocolate out there; but it's a representative abstraction. Hence the
gloss 'typical'. And that's not just a mass, as Jorge had pointed
out, because a mass still leaves you with just 'some' chocolate
(Trobriand island talk notwithstanding: Mr Chocolate is *not* the
same thing as 'exemplar of chocolate', and I think the confusion
between the two underlies much of the difficulty --- we have been
overusing loi at the expense of lo'e.)
So when you say you like chocolate, you are abstracting away from real claims, involving individual pieces of chocolate (real and potential), and saying that you've liked enough pieces of choc, enough of the time, in enough places and enough forms, that you feel you can generalise.
And when we say enough (I'd suggest), we're presupposing that we mean 'at the least most of'.
So what does {mi nelci lo'e cakla} mean?
rau su'oso'e da poi cakla ku'o
rau su'oso'e de poi temci ku'o
rau su'oso'e di poi stuzi ku'o
rau su'oso'e daxi4 poi klesi da zo'u:
mi nelci da {poi se klesi daxi4} ca de vi di
And what does it mean when you say {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko}?
rau su'oso'e da poi cinfo ku'o
rau su'oso'e de poi temci ku'o zu'o:
da xabju le friko ca de
What does lo'e broda mean in general? It is meaningless unless an
assertion is predicated of it: it does not have a denotation, a
concrete referent in the world. It is an intension: an abstraction
out of things in the world, with regard to a specific claim, which is
true or false of that abstraction. As a result, it is uncountable,
and unquantifiable. So
lo'e broda cu co'e
means something like
rau su'oso'e da poi broda ku'o
rau su'oso'e de poi temci ku'o
rau su'oso'e di poi stuzi ku'o
rau su'oso'e su'u bu'a kei
rau su'oso'e daxi4 zo'u:
da co'e ca de vi di
fi'o bu'a daxi4
It is true to say {lo'e cinfu cu xabju le friko}, because most lions
live in Africa most of the time; and *enough* lions live in Africa
*enough* of the time, that we are entitled to make a generic claim.
But that generic claim is subjective and culture-specific, as xod has pointed out. It is up to me, the speaker, to decide for each utterance how many lions are enough to start making claims about them, and how many kinds of chocolate are enough for me to decide I like chocolate in general. If {rau} in the above had an x2 place, it would be something like:
lei raumei cu banzu lenu xusra lo sucta poi skicu lo kulnu steci sidbo be lo broda
And so we turn to the Llamban lo'e. I don't understand it yet. I understand it a little better with his buska, but still not enough to see the point.
But I know this. In Lojban {lo'e}, as defined by CLL, it is true to say that {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko}. If I go looking for a lion in Llamban, and find one in Iran, it is false to say:
ge mi *buska lo'e cinfo gi ge mi stufa'i lo cinfo pe vi le gugdrirana gi lo'e cinfo cu xabju le frikoWhat are the properties of the Llamban {lo'e cinfo}? Why, the properties of Lojban {piro loi cinfo}. It can live in Africa, and it can live in Asia: both are true. It does, after all, stand in (in some wierd way) for {le ka ce'u cinfo} --- which is satisfied by Iranian as well as African lions. Its only true properties are the properties intrinsic to lionhood --- e.g. being a mammal. Not the properties incidental to lionhood but general to it, such as living in Africa. In Llamban, you can't say {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} any more than you can say {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le gugdrirana}.
You want an intensional article, Jorge? More power to you. But cease using lo'e for it. lo'e has a defined meaning already, and it's a much needed meaning; it *is* how you say "I like chocolate". {lo'e} is *an* intensional article, but it's not the all-purpose intensional article you seek. Not while {le'e} exists --- which is also an intensional article {lo'e} is in a paradigmatic relation with. Not while CLL exists --- which clearly makes a claim of Lions living in Africa incompatible with the Llamban {lo'e}.
You are damaging Lojban by claiming {lo'e} is something it is not, Jorge. You have taken a reasonably well defined cmavo, and spread confusion about it. You've had your chance to convince us that you're right, and that {lo'e} should be something else. But you've been refuted: everyone either ignores this lo'e of yours, or mocks it as Llamban. And has been doing so certainly since I rejoined the lists. For the good of the language, use an experimental cmavo for your intensional article, and leave {lo'e} alone.
Or, if you persist, grow a thick hide. (OK, an even thicker hide.) Because I regard persistence in anti-baseline usage, even after due discussion and vetting, to be humpty-dumptying, and an act of contempt against the collective. If you're not prepared to write in Lojban, I'm not prepared to read you.
-- **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** * Dr Nick Nicholas, Linguistics/French & Italian nickn@hidden.email * University of Melbourne, Australia http://www.opoudjis.net * "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the * circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson, * _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987. * **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****