[lojban-beginners] Re: ke'a

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Tuesday 22 July 2008 16:07:29 Michael Turniansky wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > On 7/22/08, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>  Well, I think we'll have to disagree on this point.  To me "poi
> >> po'o" means "restricted solely to".
> >
> > OK, but that is not what {po'o} normally does. The usual
> > function of {po'o} is to indicate that the thing it marks is
> > the only one that applies.
>
>    But it is doing that.  Like all discursives, when what it's marking
> is a (for lack of a better word) grouping cmavo, its scope is the
> entire group contained within that cmavo:
>
> le xunre tamca po'o -> the red tomato (only) (i.e. out of the red
> things, the only tomato)
> le xunre po'o tamca -> the only /red/ tomato  (i.e out of all the
> tomatos, the only one that's red)
> le po'o xunre tamca -> the only red-tomato (i.e. the only thing here
> which is a red tomato)

To me {le xunre tamca po'o} means "only the red tomato", and I'm not sure what 
the others mean.

>  lo nanmu poi ke'a vecnu lo karce poi po'o mi viska ke'a ->
>  lo nanmu poi ke'a vecnu lo karce poi (mi viska ke'a) po'o ->
> A man who sold  cars, which were (the ones I saw) only

I understand {lo nanmu poi ke'a vecnu lo karce poi mi viska ke'a po'o} as "a 
man who sold cars which were the only ones he saw". He could have sold other 
cars, but I saw no others. I don't know what to make of {poi po'o}.

phma