From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Thu May 25 09:09:59 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 22623 invoked from network); 25 May 2000 16:09:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 25 May 2000 16:09:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO bach.math.ucla.edu) (128.97.4.246) by mta2 with SMTP; 25 May 2000 16:09:29 -0000 Received: from simba.math.ucla.edu (root@simba.math.ucla.edu [128.97.4.125]) by bach.math.ucla.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA18673; Thu, 25 May 2000 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (jimc@localhost) by simba.math.ucla.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA00345; Thu, 25 May 2000 09:09:28 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: simba.math.ucla.edu: jimc owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT) To: Jorge Llambias Cc: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Two questions for the RECORD In-Reply-To: <20000524231059.27547.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: "James F. Carter" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 2839 Scoping issues get entangled, yes, but I would expect a symbol to represent its assigned antecedent, unmodified. If you want it to represent "lo ci cribe" you have to say "lo ci cribe" (the three bears as a mass or team). Thus your 2.1 would be correct: each of the three bears saw one pillow on its own bed. Following along in the story, each individually (not as a mass) made comments about the porridge, each individually had trouble sitting in three individual chairs, etc., and ko'a would always represent the three of them as individuals. So there's a bit of a problem when they all jump on Goldilocks as a team. Does anyone want to try transforming ko'a to work in that case? It would definitely take re-gadri-zation, but someone up-to-date on the grammar and semantic issues is going to have to say how to do it. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Internet: jimc@math.ucla.edu (finger for PGP key) UUCP:...!{ucsd,ames,ncar,gatech,purdue,rutgers,decvax,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!jimc On Wed, 24 May 2000, Jorge Llambias wrote: > ... > Question 2: What about assignable pro-sumti? > Consider this: > > ko'a goi le ci cribe cu nerkla le zdani > i ko'a viska pa kicne le ko'a ckana > > What does the last sentence mean? Is it: > > 2.1) Each of the bears sees one pillow on its own bed. > > 2.2) Each of the bears sees one pillow on each of their beds. > > 2.3) The three bears see one pillow on their bed(s). > > I think (2.3) would be the one I prefer, that goi > massify a multiple referent before the assignment. > Otherwise it seems it would be bad form to assign > multiple referents to ko'a, because as ko'a can survive > for many sentences, scoping issues can get pretty > entangled.