| In a message dated 3/14/2001 5:49:28 AM Central Standard Time, cowan@ccil.org
writes: <It works both ways. If xo is standalone, you are asking for any number; So, {xo} floating freely (i.e., not in a string of PA) can take any PA-string as an answer (well, any that have currently got accepted or being tested interps). In a PA string, it is asking for an appropriate replacement, presumably a digit (or suchlike, if we allow Lojbab's -- and cowan's? -- strangenesses). So, for example, {xonono} "How many hundreds" Clearly, {no,..., so} are appropriate answers. What about {reci}? What, even more trickily, about {nosobi} "We didn't get to 100, even; 98"? I think the answer here is always "Yes". Similarly, {xo ki'o} asks how many thousands but could be answered {nosomuze}. I do think that in the middle of a string, only a digit works: {muxovo} can only take {no...so} and similarly {xamuxo}. On the other hand, at the end of a string of {no} I think the interval opens up again: {panoxo} is "a hundred and what?" and so {zere} is permissible, blotting out the {no} in the process. (And, of course, {nozere} -- "What 100, we only got 72.") Does this sound about right? |