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Date:         Sat, 23 Oct 1993 10:11:58 -0400
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
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From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: TECH: Topic constructions and prenexes
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To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO
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X-From-Space-Date: Sat Oct 23 06:11:58 1993
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Ah, but if you put a le sumti with the appropriate bi'u/bi'unai in if
necessary, into the prenex, you are not typically introducing a new
referent.  It was the recognition that we had this handy construction that
has little meaning with anything other than a quantified bound variable in
it, but which can take any other kind of sumti, that led me to feel that the
use of any such other sumti could be taken to be a topicalizing (and the use
of a quantified variable also makes it a topic - we don't have a clear way
to DE-topicalize a quantified variable in the prenex).

Indeed, I cannnot come up with any other interpretation for a reference to
an old referent in the prenex, OTHER than to topicalize it.

lojbab