WikiDiscuss

About the {lo} examples:

General comment: most of these examples are complex; good examples begin, at least, with clear simple cases where there is little chance to miss the point. Such examples are boring, but they provide the information readers are looking for at the start. Later cases can deal with peculiarities. And most of these are peculiar cases (if really cases of {lo} at all): generalities, gnomic utterances, maxims and the like – things that are more or less universal; that is not {lo} home ground (and very likely not its ground at all).

ei lo verba cu mutce fraxu lo makcu prenu
Children should always show great forbearance
toward grown-up people.

This looks like a general maxim or moral rule. It is unlikely that the propounder would think it satisfied if just one child was found who forgave one adult. Using {ro} instead of {lo} is probably closer to the point to be made, especially if we allow implicit exceptions (as morals pretty regularly do) to at least the second {ro}: adult ax murderers are not to be forgiven or are their child victims required to forgive them. In these fuzzy areas (as maxims usually are) the temptation to talk in terms of “some” – which includes “all” and everything in between — is pretty strong but gives the wrong effect, as noted. Trying to do it with classes/species/kinds raises the same problems both ways (not to mention the problem of how to word it sensibly). Of course the propounder might (probably does in typical cases) has some particular youths in mind and so even {le} could be justified on that occasion.

ku'i uinai mi na viska lo lanme pa'o lo tanxe
i ju'ocu'i mi milxe simsa lo makcu prenu
But I, alas, do not see sheep through the walls of
boxes. Perhaps I am a little like the grown-ups.

I am not sure whether {pa’o} works like this, but the {lo}s in the first sentence work out right. A good example (though perhaps for later), since it reminds us that universals in negative contexts are expressed existentially: “any sheep through any box” (is “the walls of” just a flourish? This eems to apply as well to looking through a tubular box lacking both ends. The {lo} in the second sentence is probably about a species (etc.) since it is going on to some property. I would use {la’e} here, but that is only a reasonable start of working out how to talk about species.

ca lo nicte lo cinfo cu kalte lo cidja
At night lions hunt for food.

As usual for generalities, the propounder would not feel he had made his point if only on one night was one lion found to be hunting food – a single eland, say. But of course the universal is not required either, since some lions sometimes take a night off (after a big meal or when they have some fleshy corpse still available. (Lions are actually day hunters at least as much as night, but that is not relevant here.) This really soes seem to be about the species: “Lions are nocturnal food-hunters,” however that works out in the end (pretty much like that or in terms of explicit relation between species or between a species and a property — or maybe all three and more besides.)

lo pa pixra cu se vamji lo ki'o valsi
One picture is worth a thousand words.

Ah, I forgot this aspect of your work with quantifiers. {lo ki’o valsi} looks OK and not noticeably different from {ki’o valsi} – presumably the words could be spelled out in each case, maybe several different ways, indeed. Presumably this is gnomic again so the first {lo} is either universal or about species or perhaps {la’e}.

de'i li 1960 lo pare sovda cu fepni li 42
In 1960 a dozen eggs cost 42 cents.

Same old, same old. It was not just one dozen but just about any dozen there was – implicit exception in force (crested floo-floo birds’ – now extinct – eggs, certified organic, …). Iam inclining more and more to {la’e} here.

lo ctuca cu fendi lo selctu mu lo vo tadni
The teacher will divide the class
into five groups of four students.

Hey, some basic cases, though {le ctuca} makes better sense — this seems to be a particular occasion. So, come to that, {le selctu} or even {lei selctu}. But the {mu lo vo tadni} is nice.

lo bidjylinsi pe lo ze seldri cu se pagbu
ze lo ze bidju e ji'a ci lo pa bidju e lo kucysni
The Rosary of the Seven Sorrows consists of seven groups
of seven beads, with three additional beads and a Crucifix.

This looks like it is about a certain class of things, a particular kind of rosary (and, indeed, if it was about a unique thing {le} would be appropriate. Here there is none of the worry about exceptions that the more gnomic cases call for, so this could be done with {ro}. But I take it to be about the kind, laying out its particularities. In that case, the last three {lo}s are just any-olds; put them together in this way and you get a rosaary of the right sort. The first should be for species or kind and whether this form or some other covers these cases I leave for a while.

o'i mu (lo) xagji sofybakni cu zvati le purdi
Caution! There are five hungry Soviet cows in the garden.

No problems that I can see (finally!) This should come much earlier in the business.

lo sanli darxi bo dakli cu culno lo djacu onai lo canre to lo djacu
cu pukmau ki'u lo nu slilu tolcando toi gi'e bunda li ji'i 270
Standing punching bags are filled with water or sand - water
being preferable because of the wave-motion created - and
weigh about 270lbs.

Species substance substance substance species (but maybe, in all this scope, {lo} would work)

lo pavyseljirna cu ranmi danlu gi'e catlu lo ka ge ce'u xirma
gi lo jirna cu cpana lo sedycra be ce'u
Unicorns are mythical creatures that look like a horse
with a horn coming out of their foreheads.

Species conventional (could be {le} just as well) ok conventional (but I think {le} is a more sensible convention). This looks like a good safish way to talk about species (well, with the appropriate gadri, of course).

bilga lenu jdice lenu roroi pilno lo mokla tirxe
(to zoigy. velar gy. toi) jonai crane (to zoigy.
alveolar gy. toi)
tavla fi le tutra pe le terdi

I’m not sure about the context here, but this looks ok: on each occasion one use some velar (or alveolar). But complex for the point. How is this a problem solved; it seems to be basic {lo} What is the role of the blue expressions?

le cmana lo cidja ba claxu
In the mountains there is no food.
lapoi pelxu ku'o trajynobli

Normal usage – well it is good to see that implicit negation works like ex-lciti (but does it? I hope so).

le dargu pe lo xamgu bangu cu kargu
The road of the good language is costly.
lapoi pelxu ku'o trajynobli

Specific or universal (probably the latter — it seems merely factual)

la jyryr. tolkien. cu te cukta la djine turni (to la'o
gy Lord of the Rings gy toi) .e le so'omoi be lo
xanri munje lisri ca le lampru na'acto
tenguar

Species or set (probably the latter). “the severalth” is nice, though not a clear as it might be; I suppose it is to me “one of several” or just “pretty far along in the set ordered by … (date?)”