Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 14:08:38 -0500 (EST)
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject: Re: sselbri as sumti
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To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
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la lojbab cusku di'e
 
> I see two ways
>
> ro da poi jeftu de poi di poi djedi zo'u di mo'edemoi lo'e ze jefydje
> zo'u mi tervecnu
>
> which is explicit but incredibly hard to figure how to say on the fly
 
That doesn't solve the problem. You are saying that for each week da,
there is a number {mo'e de} for which there is a day di which is the
{mo'e de}th day of the week.
 
But you are choosing the number de separately for each week da, so
you are not necessarily getting every week the same day.
 
If you don't mind using the prenex, there's no need to get so complicated.
You could say:
 
        da poi jefydje zo'u mi klama le zarci ca ro cmima be da
 
Or simpler:
 
        da poi jefydje zo'u mi klama le zarci ca ro lu'a da
 
 
There is a day of the week (a class of days really) such that
I shop on every member of that class.
 
Or, with another definition of {jefydje} (closer to what you are using,
I think) "x1 is the duration of the x2th day of week x3", it would be:
 
        da poi namcu zo'u mi klama le zarci ca ro jefydje be da
 
(da should be "a number between 1 and 7".)
 
The problem is how to say it without the prenex. It can't be done because
there seems to be no way that the complement of a sumti can come before
its quantification. The so called pre-posed subordinate clauses are not
really pre-posed. They are in-posed because they come after the gadri
(and thus after the quantification).
 
> (not to mention that no one will remember that mo'e is the sumti to
> number converter)
 
How does mo'e work? Here you seem to be using it to mean that
{mo'e de} is "some number de", but the cmavo list says:
 
>> mo'e      MOhE     sumti to operand
>> convert sumti to mex operand;
>> sample use in story arithmetic: [3 apples] + [3 apples] = what
 
This suggests to me that {mo'e de} means "at least one de", where
{de} could be apples, for example.
 
Which one is right? If {mo'e de} means "some number de", then I can't
imagine what {mo'e pa plise} could mean.
 
Jorge