From: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 95 19:43:05 EDT
Message-Id: <9508252343.AA15384@clueless.phyast.pitt.edu>
To: cowan@locke.ccil.org, jorge@phyast.pitt.edu
Subject: pro-sumti and pro-bridi
Status: OR


> Pro-sumti And Pro-bridi: Brevity Is The Soul Of Language
> $Revision: 1.13 $
> 
> 4. Utterance pro-sumti: the di'u-series
> 
> The cmavo of the di'u-series enable us to talk about things that have
> been, are being, or will be said.  In English, it is normal to use "this"
> and "that" for this purpose (indeed, the immediately preceding "this" is
> an example of such a usage):

But "this" in "this purpose" is an adjective, and {di'u} can't be used 
like that.  :)  Also, I don't think English ever uses "this" or 
"that" for future utterances.

> 	do na nelci loi mlatu .i di'u jitfa
> 	You not like the-mass-of cats.  The-previous-utterance is-false.

Wouldn't it have to be {la'e di'u jitfa}?  Actually, it would probably
make a lot more sense if di'u et al referred to what the utterances say,
rather than to the utterances themselves. That would save a lot of
{la'e}s. That's what "this" and "that" usually refer to in English, too.


> 5. Assignable pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the ko'a-series and the broda-series

What I miss in this section is a discussion of what happens when {ko'a} 
is assigned to something other than a singular term. Things like:

	ci prenu goi ko'a klama le zarci
	i ko'a dunda lo plise mi

Do I get one or three apples? (I would say one, but pc may disagree).
Also things like:

	ro le ci prenu cu dunda lo plise goi ko'a mi
	i mi dunda ko'a do

How many apples do you get? (I would say three.)
 

> 5.6)	mi klama cei brode le zarci .i do brode
> 	I go-to (which-is claim-1) the store.  You claim-1
> 	I go to the store.  You, too.
> 
> In the second bridi, "do brode" means "do klama le zarci", because "brode"
> carries the x2 sumti of "mi klama le zarci" along with it.  It also
> potentially carries the x1 sumti as well, but the explicit x1 sumti "do"
> overrides the "mi" of the antecedent bridi.  

This is dangerous. I think it would be more natural to say that the x2
in {do brode} is probably {le zarci} because from context that is the
most likely value of {zo'e}, but this may not always be so. For example,

	mi klama cei brode la romas la paris 	
	ibabo mi brode la london

In this case, the x3 of brode is more likely to be {la romas} than
{la paris}. And if I made it explicit, with the other rule it would 
mean that I'm using the same route in both cases, which is probably not 
what we want. This comment is valid also for {go'i} and the rest. I think 
it is much safer to leave the empty places as {zo'e}, as usual. Of course, 
the most likely value of {zo'e} in most cases will be the one that appeared 
in the antecedent selbri, but this should not have to be necessarily so. 


> 6. Anaphoric pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the ri-series and the go'i-series
> 
> Certain sumti are ignored by "ri"; specifically, most of the other cmavo
> of KOhA.  It is simpler to just repeat them directly:

It would be nice to know which ones are not ignored. It would be much 
easier if none were. 


> 7.  Indefinite pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the zo'e-series and the co'e-series
>
> 7.7)	mi zbasu loi mudri zi'o

{loi mudri} should be {le dinju}.


> The pro-bridi "co'e" (which by itself constitutes the co'e-series of selma'o
> GOhA) represents the elliptical selbri.  Lojban grammar does not allow the
> speaker to merely omit a selbri from a bridi, although any or all sumti may
> be freely omitted. 

The selbri can be grammatically omitted as well, at least in many cases, and 
it is often omitted in actual usage. (The parser would call this merely an 
"utterance" instead of a bridi, but semantically it works like a bridi
with ellipsized {co'e}.

Jorge