Message-Id: <199407131945.AA25751@nfs1.digex.net>
Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Date: Wed Jul 13 15:45:39 1994
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: a simple question...
X-To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@access.digex.net>
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Wed Jul 13 15:45:39 1994
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU

la lojbab spusku di'e

> JL> You say that in {le dasni be le mapku pe le no'a}, no'a = dasni.
>
> I'm not sure.  I'm not even sure whether you might have omitted a be'o.
> I will assume you did what you wanted and the pe phrase is intended to attach
> to "le mapku" and not "le dasni be ..."

That's what I intended.

> Actually, I didn;t say anything earlier about "pe" relative phrases;

In your example, you had {le dasni be le [] mapku}, and I filled [] with
{le no'a ku} and expanded it, but maybe you meant to have it as a tanru.

> they are
> in the same somewhat unconventionalized position as relative clauses. Cowan
> reminded be today that the use of a "ku" can make the difference between
> whether a relative is attached inside the description or outside, which in
> turn also may affect the interpretation.

ua i'enai

{le dasni pe le mapku} parses differently than {le dasni ku pe le mapku}!
They parse respectively:

({le <dasni [pe (le mapku KU) GE'U]> KU} VAU)

({<le dasni ku> <pe [le mapku KU] GE'U>} VAU)

Is there any difference in meaning? With this parsing, in my example
{no'a} would have to be {mapku}. But what about:

        le mi mapku

Does it expand to:

        le mapku pe mi

or to:
        le mapku ku pe mi

?

> JL> Couldn't we have {vo'a}, {vo'e}, etc to be {le no'a}, {le se no'a}, etc?
> JL> This would make reflexives easy:
>
> Well, if we did that, the two would be redundant to an extent.

If not, they are redundant to {le nei}, {le se nei}, etc.

> One major purpose of "vo'a" is for explicitly dealing with "and vice versa"
> which has a special metalinguistic syntax (soivo'evo'a).

This wouldn't be affected at all, since in such cases the next outer selbri
_is_ the main selbri.

>  There
> is not a lot of need to devote separate words to each of the places of
> "no'a" because it really isn't all theta often that one wants to deal with
> oblique places of the next outer selbri.

That may be so, but I don't see why. In many cases, the next outer selbri
is the main selbri. When it isn't, I don't see why it's more often that
one wants easy access to the main selbri places rather than the next up.

> The question though is whether "no'a" really is intended to deal generally
> with whatever we as natlang speakers consider 'reflexives', or whethe it
> is to be used to access a particular selbri and its places (and if the
> latter, which one).

Are these two exclusive? It certainly has to refer to some selbri, and
there should be a rule to say which. This sometimes will translate as a
reflexive.

> I'm sure this is a confusing answer.  Sorry about that.

No, it's instructive.

>
> lojbab
>

Jorge