Yeah, I wondered whether that would work -- I wanted to indicate 'the
thing which would go in the x2 place of the bridi' (ignoring for a
moment the fact that I almost certainly may not access that bridi at
all using vo'e, since it's neither the current nor the outermost
bridi)... that is, 'the product of the act of creation I just
mentioned' even though I didn't name or describe that product by
filling the x2 place. Elided places become "zo'e", "something
unspecified", so it's not like they don't exist. I just didn't tell
you anything about that place.
I considered options such as filling the x2 of finti with "da goi
ko'a", but I thought, if "vo'e" actually works, that's much more
elegant. So, any experts want to comment? Can "vo'a" and "le se
go'i" and suchlike refer to places that were never specified?
1. I think that indeed you can use anaphora like {vo'a} and {le se go'i} to refer to unspecified places for exactly the reason you posited, that is, that {zo'e} is understood for those places.
2. While KOhA4 ({vo'a} et al.) indeed refer to the main bridi, your other idea is sound, although you don't really need the {goi ko'a}. Hence your original sentence:
* {.i da'i mi nelci lenu finti bau la lojban. fi lenu le jbocertu [cu]te pinka vo'e}
could be recast as:
{.i da'i mi nelci lenu finti da bau la lojban. fi lenu le jbocertu cu te pinka da}
3. There's a little used member of GOhA, {no'a}, which refers to the next outer bridi. So you could go with:
{.i da'i mi nelci lenu finti bau la lojban. fi lenu le jbocertu cu te pinka le se no'a}
This approach troubles me a bit, but it has the advantage of highlighting the full power of GOhA, as yet unwielded by the Lojban community.
mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan