From nicholas@uci.edu Fri Aug 24 12:43:12 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: nicholas@uci.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2); 24 Aug 2001 19:43:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 82985 invoked from network); 24 Aug 2001 19:41:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 24 Aug 2001 19:41:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO e4e.oac.uci.edu) (128.200.222.10) by mta2 with SMTP; 24 Aug 2001 19:41:30 -0000 Received: from localhost (nicholas@localhost) by e4e.oac.uci.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA25693; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:41:30 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: e4e.oac.uci.edu: nicholas owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:41:30 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: To: Cc: Nick NICHOLAS Subject: Re: [lojban] soi disant soi dissent Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Nick NICHOLAS X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 10055 cu'u la xod. >> If you look at all the usage Nick collected together, you also find short >> distance vo'a not just with soi. >Nick only listed it once that I can see, and it was an accident (didn't >close off with kei). Que? http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9203/msg00034.html : Mark Shoulson, lenu vo'a, short-distance (nu clause is x1 of main bridi, so long-distance interpretation is blocked) http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9303/msg00107.html : Colin Fine, lenu vo'a, short-distance (nu clause is x1 of main bridi, so long-distance interpretation is blocked) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/2383 (Michael Helsem, ledu'u vo'a, short distance, no nesting error, no actual plausible explanation :-) ) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/5231 (Michael Helsem, lenu vo'a, short distance, observative -- so no overt x1) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/message/2308 : Cyril Slobin, noi vo'a, __short__-distance (is considering co'o mi'e... to be a separate sentence) >That's good. We all want the impossible: a compromise that gives us clear >usage of vo'a from now on, but deviates as little as possible from old >usage!! I'm sorry, but I still thought I'd formulated that: vo'a is always long-distance * except when used with soi (Robin Turner) * and when used in an embedded phrase which would end up being the referent of vo'a (Colin Fine, Mark Shoulson) -- to avoid recursion With the possible exception of the final clause (which I won't actually insist on), isn't this precisely your "most obvious answer"? And like Rob says, I could just not mention soi vo'a at all; but that's actually tantamount to saying vo'a should not exist at all. Won't get much argument from me, but inasmuch as vo'a exists, it'd be nice to pin it down. And students *will* see people using "soi vo'a"; it'd be irresponsible of me not to explain what it means (or is meant to mean.) My intent, btw, is to put all this in an appendix at the end of the lessons, advocate the long-distance only as "most Lojbanic", but add that this convention actually characterises best what's been used to date (and that {lenei} and {leno'a[xiro]} can be used to disambiguate.) I happen to think this usage is 'wrong', too, but it does exist. You can say "this usage was mistaken", xod, but doesn't that contradict "let usage decide"? If not, how not? --- I'm honestly confused here. -- == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu} nicholas@uci.edu -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias