Date:  Thu, 4 Dec 1997 09:36:43 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199712041436.JAA05837@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Central Lancashire
Subject:      Re: kau
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To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
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Content-Length: 1737
X-From-Space-Date: Thu Dec  4 09:36:49 1997
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Jorge:
> And:
> >> >ni'o co'i le cerni cu preti fofo'a feleli'i fo'a capu sipna ge'ekau
>  >> "In the morning they asked her how she had slept."
>  >> I would use {peikau} rather than {ge'ekau}, but in any
> >> case it is definitely an indirect question.
> >
> >I infer that {ge`e} is a BAI question word.
>
> No, is an unspecified emotion. ge'e is to UI as zo'e is to KOhA.
> That's why I would have used pei instead, which is the question UI.

I really must get organized with my Lojban reference materials,
so I stop making these gaffes.

Still, I'm glad to see that I had indeed remembered an example
of kau being used without a question word.

Anyway, as Lee said in a later message, {peikau} is still not
that great a rendition, is it?

I would suggest:

co'i le cerni cu preti fofo'a fa lo du`u fo'a pu sipna se kai ma kau

> >> It is not very clear to me why {ba'e} couldn't just have been a UI,
> >> and thus spare yet another selmaho, but that's another story.
> >
> >Then ba`e would have had to follow the word it marks, rather than
> >precede it. Maybe that was a factor.
>
> Yes, probably. But why was there a need for it to precede?

I don't know. I remember once noticing a rationale for that
selma`o, but don't now remember what it was.

> >Anyway, ba`e means "new info", which is not the same as focus.
>
> ba'e means "emphasize next". (I understand what you meant by
> {ba'e ko'a} now. I was a bit puzzled.)

Apparently I meant {ko`a bi`u}. I would have been totally
flummoxed, not just a bit puzzled.

> >The English it-cleft construction focalizes. So I think I'll
> >stick with kau as a focalizer.
>
> Isn't emphasis something like focus? Maybe not, I don't know.

Yes but you can have one without the other.

--And