RE: [jboske] scope issues

["Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>]

la and cusku di'e

> Since the syntax was created independently of meaning, I am loath
> to attribute semantic significance to it. Furthermore, the
> official syntax is so perverse and peculiar that one shouldn't
> be obliged to learn it. It should be sufficient that one learns
> which strings are and aren't licit, without learning the official
> generative rules. In technical terms, it should be sufficient
> that one learns a grammar that is weakly equivalent in generative
> capacity to the official grammar.

Yes, I agree. Ideally it would be possible to define a new
simplified grammar that matches more closely the grammar that
one learns, though.

> You are right of course about {ko'a broda su'o da gi'e brode},
> but the principle of minimizing the conjuncts -- as I advocate
> -- yields
>
> "ko'a { [ broda su'o da ] gi'e [ brode ] }".
>
> But the same principle yields
>
> "ko'a na { [ broda su'o da ] gi'e [ brode ] }"

And also, I suppose:

"ko'a { [ broda su'o da ] gi'e [ na brode ] }"

So in effect you're saying that {gi'e} is not symmetric,
because the second term can have sebri tags of its own
but the first term can't, as its selbri tags must always
be shared with the second term.

It's a possible way of doing it, but it doesn't match the
syntax. I'm not yet sure what The Right Thing is.

In practice, it happens very often that I write
{na broda gi'e} and then I stop to think what
is it that I'm negating, and since I'm never sure
I change to {broda na gi'e}.

> The principle I espouse is the easiest to learn and to apply. If
> instead we have to delve into the structures assigned by the
> official grammar, then madness lies in wait.

I'm not sure that the principle that selbri-tags go with
their selbri only would be so hard to learn, especially
considering the symmetry. But if the intention was to
have the selbri tags have greater scope than the bridi-tail
connectives, then it is hard to see why the syntax couldn't
have reflected that. It doesn't seem like a forced mismatch
at all.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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