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la xod cusku di'e
Nobody complains about {da gerku}, da taking its meaning from its
position.
{da gerku} is equivalent to {su'o da zo'u da gerku}, "for at
least one x, x is a dog". Here {da} ranges over everything,
and the claim is that some of the values (at least one) give
a true claim. What meaning does {da} take here from its
position?
But people complain about {ko'a gerku}, if ko'a wasn't already
specified, instead of relaxing and treating it the same way as da.
{ko'a gerku} is fine as far as I can tell. It mean's "it's a dog".
{ko'a} has a referent that the speaker knows. If the listener
does not know what {ko'a} refers to, this sentence might help
them to figure it out (they can restrict the possibilities
to dogs), but by itself it is not enough. The listener can't
choose any dog and decide that that dog is ko'a, because the
speaker might be using {ko'a} to refer to some other dog. If
the listener can't figure it out and needs to know, they may
ask for clarification with {ko'a ki'a}. The same thing happens
in English. If someone says "it's a dog" and you can't tell
what "it" refers to, you ask "_what_ is a dog?". On the other
hand, {da gerku}, "something is a dog", does not require
the identification of any dog.
{ko'a
gerku} could be the same as {ko'a goi X gerku}. (I'm using the X to avoid
fights over which gadri to use, and yes, I am well aware that the latter
lacks a selbri, too.)
{ko'a gerku} makes a claim. {ko'a goi le gerku} assigns a value
to {ko'a}, whatever the speaker is referring to with {le gerku}.
Isn't this one of the oddities of Lojban?
I'm probably missing the point. mu'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail