Date:  Sun, 12 Oct 1997 05:08:54 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199710121008.FAA06294@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: na`e
To:         JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Cc:         Lojban List <lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
In-Reply-To:  <0EH100JESIZGQR@newcastle.edu.au>
Status: OR
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X-From-Space-Date: Sun Oct 12 05:08:54 1997
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On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS wrote:

> >> > (1)        su'o bu'a poi na vreta zo'u le mlatu cu bu'a le stizu
> >> >              For some <X> which is not "vreta", the cat <X> the chair.
> >> >
> >> > I think {su'o bu'a poi na vreta} really means something else, but
> >> > that's a different story which I'm not sure we want to get into.
> >>
> >> For "poi" read "cei", which makes everything fine.
> >
> >But if "bu'a" means "some selbri 1", then how can it be assigned to a
> >specific selbri without "poi"? I thought "cei" was for assignable
> >pro-bridi - which "bu'a" isn't - and "poi" was for relative clauses -
> >which are one of the few ways you can restrict the scope of a logically
> >quantifiable existential pro-bridi.
>
> Quantifiable pro-bridi are an abomination on the language.

Ha, ha, ha! Okay. Would you like to explain that a little more? :)

>Fortunately
> they aren't needed. Here's a way of doing it with ordinary quantification,
> even if it does take a few more words:
>
>         su'o da su'o de poi na zo vreta zo'u
>                 da de bridi le mlatu ku ce'o le stizu ije da jetnu
>
>     There is some x, and there is some y which is not "lies on", such that:
>                x is a predication with selbri y and arguments (the cat, the
> chair),
>                and x is true.

Ooh, I think I'd prefer the previous sentence for its conciseness. This
one is technically correct, but hideous. Fortunately for ordinary users, I
don't think it should be necessary to express this particular concept to
this level of precision in any case.

Geoff