[lojban-beginners] Re: alice questions

[Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com>]

On 8/16/05, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/14/05, Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com> wrote:
> >{se kanla} is the body that holds
> > the eyes, right? So {xunblabi se kanla} means "pink [type-of] being
> > body(ies) with eyes" or something, not anything close to "having pink
> > eyes".
> 
> "Pink eyed". It could be "pink and eyed", but it can also just as well
> be "eyed by a pink thing".

Well, what I was getting at was, why is the {se} necessary, and why
doesn't it change the meaning to "pink body with eyes"? Wouldn't {poi
xunblabi kanla} mean "pink eyed" or "with pink eyes"?

> > Oh, and why the {poi}? Oughtn't it be {lo blabi ractu noi kanla
> > noi xunblabi}?
> 
> (The two noi's there modify {lo blabi ractu}.)

Is there a way to nest poi/noi clauses?

> > It seems like non-restrictive ought to be the default,
> > being less error-prone, and it doesn't seem that {poi} is required
> > here.
> 
> I don't see a problem with {poi} here. It restricts the sense of {blabi ractu}
> to just those that have pink eyes.

It feels uncomfortable to me because the restrictive sense doesn't
seem to be adding any information, and as a listener I would wonder
whether I were missing some subtlety that required the {poi} to
communicate something.

Chris Capel, who has read several more paragraphs with no new questions
-- 
"What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it
like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?"
-- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)