Re: le/lo

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>> >You can't say "lo xunre cu tcica lo brakarce", because 1) it wasn't the
>> >purse that cheated, and 2) it wasn't the bus so much as the bus company
>> >that was cheated.  So you have a choice of ...
>>
>> This is an example of metonymy, like Nick Nicholas often discussed.  We have
>> two common ways of dealing with metonymy in Lojban: tu'a and la'e/lu'e
>
>--More--
>You can say "lo xunre cu tcica lo brakarce": that would indeed
>be metonymy, and is part and parcel of ordinary everyday
>communication. By decoding the idea "some red thing cheated some
>bus", the hearer can then take this idea to be a metonym, and
>successfully infer the intended thought "the person with
>the red bag cheated the bus company".

I would not use metonymy unmarked in Lojban if I could help it.
It is too easy to mark it, and doesn't leave you making fasle claims
(which the unmarked version really is doing).  The listener shouldn't be
obliged to determine that the speaker is speaking figuratively or
metonymically.

lojbab