[lojban-beginners] Re: zo zu'i

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 4/22/08, Brett Williams <mungojelly@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The place in between where I believe the distinction must
> rest is precisely upon the point of conversational utility, that is:
> "zu'i" means that the speaker expects that the listener has an
> idea of what situation is being described, and that they can
> easily guess what the "zu'i"ed place is.  The speaker is
> encouraging the listener to fill in the blank with the obvious
> thing; they're saying "I'm not going to say what this thing
> is, but it's pretty much what you'd expect it to be."

That's a pretty accurate description for {zo'e} too.

> So if you said "the people exited the building via the zu'i",
> I would think you meant the front door.

And if you omitted the via place, you'd probably get
the same result.

> If you said "the people
> exited the ba'e burning building via the zu'i", I would think:
> What's the typical way to exit a burning building?  Maybe
> via a fire escape?  It doesn't help much to consider the
> abstract [xe klama], which could be a spaceship on a
> galactic perspective,

Or flying if you include flies and not just humans for x1.

> nor the very particular situation, which
> might as well be "zo'e".  It seems to me that the situation
> for which a "zu'i" is typical must be a situation being
> understood by the listener in the particular communication
> context.

It's hard to think of a situation where using {zu'i} is more
informative than {zo'e}, or just leaving the place empty.

Perhaps {na'e bo zu'i} might be more useful, but that
would only be used to create some sort of tension:
the place is filled by something unexpected, but I'm not
(yet) telling just what.

mu'o mi'e xorxes