--- Rob Speer <rspeer@MIT.EDU> wrote:On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 07:19:28PM +0200, Yuval Harel wrote:> 1) I've noticed people are signing their posts with signatures such as > "mu'o mi'e iuvál". Does that not defy the meaning of {mu'o}? > If attitudinals are allowed to be attached to {mu'o} it no longer marks the > end of the utterance. When used in speech, it seems that the listener must > infer where the attached attitudinal list ends from context.An interesting point - perhaps it should be "mi'e rab.spir mu'o". But I think that, as non-computers, we understand that someone saying "mu'o" at least gets to finish the sentence.{mu'o} is a COI, not a UI. You don't have a complete parse until you hear a name or a {do'u} after it.
Even if it were a UI, "mu'o mi'e iuvál" would still be grammatical, yielding the same problem.In fact, now I am more bothered by that than before. Doesn't mu'o being a COI
mean that both "mu'o mi'e iuvál" and "mi'e iuvál. mu'o" are non-gramatical(because no name or do'u is present), and should instead be expressed "mu'o mi'e iuvál do'u" and "mi'e iuvál mu'o do'u"?
It doesn't by itself mark the end of an utterance. The construction that it heads marks the end of the utterance.
That is precisely the problem - how could one tell where the construction ends?
It could in theory be an arbitrarily long "mu'o do'u ui ui ui ..."