Message-Id: <199602260606.BAA29864@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Sun, 25 Feb 1996 17:47:38 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      short intemperate response to Lojbab on {kea}
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 1755

> >Since there's no risk of ambiguity, anyone who wants to can use kea as
> >the lambda-variable, and the result will be grammatical and
> >intelligible.
> Not intelligible to me - butthen I have little normative force until I
> get to start using the language again.

We cannot let our standard of intelligibility be determined by you in
these cases when there is no rational basis for finding it unintelligible.
You might equally declare that you find {ge} unintelligible. What can one
respond to that? "Oh dear, we'd better scrap logical connectives"?

> >I also propose, following a suggestion by you, that kea be usable within
> >to...toi as a reference to, by default, the outermost bridi of the
> >sentence containing to...toi:
> >  Sophy, as I'm sure you know, is married.
> >  la sofi n to kea zou mi birti kuau do djuno kea toi cu ca speni
> >  Sophy is, I fervently believe, unsurpassedly beautiful
> >  la sofi n cu to mi carmi krici kea toi traji leka kea melbi
> I won't pretend to understand this.

{kea} in prenex of the main bridi within to..toi refers to a bridi the
parenthesis is within.

> We have nei/no'a/la'edei for what I think you are trying for.

I doubt it. I'd have thought {dei} refers to the current utterance, while
{nei} refers to current bridi and {noa} to next outer bridi. None of these
will cover the function of {kea}.

> Probably because I never have understood the proposal, I haven't the
> vaguest idea what distinction you are making in creating a ke'a prenex
> inside the parentheses in the first (and not in the second).  Nor do I
> have any idea what your experimental cmavo means.

I've posted more than one explanation of it. Maybe I should use an
unassigned rather than an experimental cmavo.

coo, mie and