Re: le/lo

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Jorge:
> >(Based on actual usage, though, they do seem to generally
> >be used as singulars. I, though, would recommend using lo/le
> >for plurals, and for singulars and by default using loi/lei.)

[Just to clarify (even though you understood me correctly), I
meant that loi/lei should be used for singulars and by default,
with lo/le reserved for plurals.]

> To make true the wrong in my opinion but often made claim
> that Lojban does not mark number, loi/lei _should_ be the
> natural default gadri, but in practice lo/le are used as default.
>
> (I know that lo/le are not always singular, but they always refer
> individually. Plural is often used in other languages to refer
> collectively.)
>
> lo/le always entail loi/lei respectively, but the converse
> is not true. Perhaps it is malglico to use lo/le as the default
> for single referents (especially le), but it is a malglico that
> comes from the very inception of the language, since
> obviously lo/le are morphologically less marked than loi/lei.

I agree. All I can say is that I think that in those places
where the unmarked option (e.g. morphologically simpler, or
requiring fewer words, or such like) pushes us in the less
logical of two directions, we should insist on going down the
more marked but more logical of the two directions. That means
that actual text would tend to be more verbose, more clumsy
and less elegant than Lojban forces us to be, but it would
show where the Lojban design made the wrong choices as to
what the unmarked option should be.

However, I am virtually certain that noone but me will heed
the above admonition, and as (a) I am unlikely to be producing
anything but a miniscule amount of Lojban text (because I am
busy and it takes me a long time, though I am nonetheless planning
to translate a Livagian myth into Lojban), and (b) what I do write
is often difficult to read, I think my usage would have no
influence whatever.

--And