RE: [jboske] coi xirma, doi xirma

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

John:
> And Rosta scripsit:
> 
> > > Where do you see this? 6.11 seems to me to say that doi xirma means
> > > doi le xirma only 
> > 
> > Page 183 -- sec 9 of the relative clause chapter, first para 
> 
> Ah. I agree that pages 183 and 136 are in apparent conflict, and 183
> was ill-conceived. Note the presence of the hedge "In a sense" on 183,
> whereas 136 makes the clear statement that the gadri omitted in
> COI+selbri is "le" 
> 
> I suppose in 183 I was thinking that Horse might be justly described
> as le xirma; I wouldn't say that today 

OK. But I think p136 makes an unfortunate choice of the default. See
below.

> > OK. Using a +definite gloss, then we have "I hereby address/greet it the 
> > horse". 
> 
> I assume the "it" is spurious. Yes, except that you might want horror 
> quotes around "horse" 

The "it" was deliberate, because personal pronouns seem to me to be
the best way of unambiguously getting +spec +def in English: 
+spec -def = "a certain broda",
+spec +def = "it, which is broda,".
> 
> > The key point is that {doi le} first establishes the referent of {le}
> > and then says that it is being greeted/addressed. 
> 
> Just so. 

So when I greet my wife by saying "hello beautiful", I mean
{coi do noi melbi} and not {coi le melbi}. Sometimes I refer
to my son as {la cmalu verlanme}, so when I say to him "hello
little lamb", I might be saying {coi la cmalu verlanme}.
But very rarely do I ever say {coi le broda}.

--And.