From cbmvax!uunet!ctr.columbia.edu!shoulson Fri May 31 14:18:55 1991 Return-Path: From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Date: Fri May 31 14:18:55 1991 Message-Id: <9105311644.AA07963@relay2.UU.NET> To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com In-Reply-To: John Cowan's message of Thu, 30 May 91 11:02:15 EDT Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!shoulson Subject: cleft place structures Status: RO Um, this may be a Red Herring, but it seems to me that these cleft place structures have a lot in common with relative clauses. I mean, the complaint is that the actor gets re-used in a subortinate clause which indicates how the change was effected or whatever. Note that the actor of the main sentence need not be the actor of the subordinate one (for lack of a better term. Note also that "actor" doesn't have that much of a meaning in Lojban, nor does the x1 place deserve spectial treatment. But the label is convenient), nor does the actor even need to appear in the subordinate clause (e.g. Arthur Protin's Iraqi example, "I will modify our country's borders by your invasion of Kuwait.") It seems that you ought to allow the use of ke'a (that's the relative pronound, yes?) in such constructions to refer to the actor of the main clause (oh, dear, that gives x1 special treatment. Oh, well, I think it's happened elsewhere.) Obviously, the grammar doesn't care (isn't ke'a just a pro-sumti, like mi or do?), but the semantics seem to work, at first glance. It may be that in order to avoid these cleft places, it might be best to excise the places in which they occur and use BAI clauses sort of like poi with ke'a or whatever to express them. Hope that's not too bad a case of "simple solution to complex problem" disease. co'omi'e mark.