From opi_lauma@yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 02:53:27 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: opi_lauma@yahoo.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 70263 invoked from network); 30 Mar 2005 10:53:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m24.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 30 Mar 2005 10:53:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n2a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com) (66.94.237.36) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 30 Mar 2005 10:53:26 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: Received: from [66.218.69.6] by n2.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 30 Mar 2005 10:53:24 -0000 Received: from [66.218.66.81] by mailer6.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 30 Mar 2005 10:53:24 -0000 Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:52:41 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2157 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-compose X-Originating-IP: 66.94.237.36 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0 X-Yahoo-Post-IP: 141.2.216.130 From: "opi_lauma" Subject: Re: "zo'e" = ("unimportant","obvious" and ?"unknown") X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=216990827 X-Yahoo-Profile: opi_lauma X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 24059 I tried to classify cases when one does not use concrete sumti, and replace it (in some cases) by "zo'e". Let us consider the following statements (cases). Situation will be classified by saying which statement is true and which is false. A : speaker know what is sumti. B : speaker want to know what is sumti. C : speaker think that listener know what is sumti. D : speaker think that listener wants to know what is sumti. E : speaker want that listener know what is sumti. Not all combinations are possible. I understand "want to know" as "want to get information" about what is sumti. It means that "if C=true then D=false". According to the grammar zo'e (need to/can ?) be used if sumti is obvious or not important. 1.If we say that "sumti is obvious" it means that speaker know what is sumti (A = true) and listener also know that (C = true). 2.If we say that "sumti is not important" ,I think, we need to mean that "it is not important to say" (in the given contest) what is sumti. This case should contain first case as a partial case, isn't? Really, if sumti is obvious it is not important to say what is sumti. The second reason, why it can be not important to say what is sumti is that listener does not need this information, while this information is not interesting and/or not necessary for him (D = false). In English one use in this case passive construction: For example: "Our car has been bought." We say like this if: 1. It is obvious who bought our car, because we knew, for example, that it should be bought by some person, listener just did not know whether it is already bought or not (A = true, C = true). 2. The second reason is that speaker thing that listener does not want (does not need) to know who bought our car, for him it is only important whether car was bought or not (D = false). It means that one need to use "zo'e" if: (C = true) or ((C = false) and (D = false)) What is not clear for me is by what speaker need to replace sumti if it is unknown by speaker and listener want to know what is sumti. For example if I say: Somebody bought our car. I means that I do not know who did it.