gadri

[cbmvax!uunet!oasis.icl.co.uk!I.Alexander.bra0122]

loi gadri zo'u

The distinction between {le} and {lo} (and their variants)
seems to serve a multitude of purposes.

        le            vs. lo
        the           vs. a
        specific      vs. non-specific
        definite      vs. indefinite
        non-veridical vs. veridical
        already-known vs. unknown

I'm still trying to make up my mind which of these properties
amount to the same thing.

As far as I can make out, the "veridical" distinction is the
most fundamental.  {le cukta} means
"the-thing-which-I-am-describing-as-a book", but with the
rider that I don't feel the need to be more specific, because
I expect you to know from the context which book I am talking
about.  This is an alternative way of referring to previously-
mentioned sumti, without always assigning a KOhA.

Note that this makes the specific/definite descriptions
ambiguous.  When I use {le}, I _am_ referring to something
specific, *but I'm not specifying it now*.  It is something
which has been specified earlier.  When I use {lo}, I am
almost certainly immediately going to start telling you
enough about it so that it becomes specific.

Having talked myself through to this point, it all seems
remarkably straightforward - the above properties are all
essentially the same - which probably means I've lost sight
of the real problem.  I've certainly had as much trouble
in the past choosing the right gadri as anyone else.
So I need to go away and actually write some Lojban
(I haven't done that for _ages_ :), try to put the above
theory into practice, and see if it works.

But just a final warning that I don't think we should
try and put too much reliance on the _descriptive_
nature of {le}.  If I want to describe something as
{le ratcu}, even though it isn't really, because I
can't think of any better word, or for some other reason
("the so-called rat" - no that would be {la ratcu}),
I don't think {le}'s the answer.

Iain.