Message-Id: <m0qob7C-00001DC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 24 Sep 1994 13:42:22 EDT
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: general response on needing books
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2038
Lines: 62

And:
> Le prenu cu jinvi le duhu xihile cukta cu blanu
>
> The person thinks "the book is blue".

I'd translate that English sentence as:

        le prenu cu jinvi la'e lu le cukta cu blanu li'u

> To find out which book, you'd
> have to ask the person, not me the speaker.

Why the person? Is there something special about the x1 position?
How about:

        le ninmu le nanmu cu tugni le du'u xi'ile cukta cu blanu

Who'd you ask, the woman, the man, both?

> The referent of xihile
> cukta is 'in mind' but the mind is the person's, not the speaker's.

Only if within quotations. Out of quotations, there's no connection
between the specificity of {le} and the mind of any "character"
appearing in the sentence.

Besides, linking the specificity of {le} with the quantification
of {lo} seems to me that is a big part of the confusion we are having.


> You need local quantification or reference-assignment only when it
> is in a clause subordinate to an irrealis element of meaning (i.e.
> something whose argument is not necessarily the case).

I disagree. The quantification applies to realis elements as well.
(The reference assignment is a different issue, which I don't think
has anything to do with locality.)

For example:

        mi djuno le du'u lo cukta cu blanu
        I know that there is a book that is blue.

        da poi cukta zo'u mi djuno le du'u da blanu
        There is a book such that I know it is blue.

Different claims, both with realis subordinate clauses.
(In the second one I have to know which book, in the first one I
may or may not know.)

> And in most
> utterances there won't be such an element. However, when there is
> such an element you may indeed be right that local rather than
> outermost quantification is more often what is wanted.

The question then is whether the need to use outside quantification
is significant enough to warrant the introduction of xi'i. You can
always be explicit using a prenex, is there really a need for the
more compact form with xi'i? I'm not sure.


Jorge