In a message dated 10/6/2001 10:12:44 PM Central Daylight Time, rob@twcny.rr.com writes:
Dammit, pc, this isn't a debate competition. It will not help the language to Thank God, rab. If it were a debate competition it would be decided on rhetorical grounds rather than facts and rigor. And, as too often happens, the guy who makes the wildest claim and says it loudest would win. And has made a claim, tried to shift the burden of proof on to me, revised the claim when I didn't shoulder it, and will no doubt soon revise it again, since it still does not work. I understand him perfectly well, but think that what he means to say is either false or trivial, depending on which way he finally states it, and, as I noted, in any case, has no bearing on the issue at hand. <* What are these problems that {le nei} created? You may be thinking of other things involving {nei}. {le nei} was brought up to solve the {vo'a}problem.> The basic problem with {nei} is that it is self-referential, so that itcannot ever succeed in actually refrring to its referent because it referent does not exist until it has succeeded in referring to it. Thus, itis the whole _expression_ {le nei} that functions as a unit, with the {nei} part there just as a dummy, not a real referrer at all (but enough of a reality that it cannot be used for the first argument in the BRIDI). With counting {le} phrases as bridi in the meaning of the definition, {nei}'s work could be done by {no'a} with a slightly less horrific result (though actually the same problem can be recreated at every level, including {vo'a} -- this aprticular anaphora technique is theoretically deeply flawed, for all that it works more or less in practice). <* What follows le is a bridi by your definition, but it is not the specific entry in the parser that we usually refer to when we say "bridi". For example, you can't put {mi klama le zarci} in {le}. {le} creates a bridi out of the pseudo-bridi which follows it, and takes the x1 out of it. This bridi is not part of the sentence> Yes, it is not a BRIDI because it contains {be} and the rest -- not because it doesn't have an x1. {le} doesn't make it a BRIDI out of the bridi tail that follows it nor does it take a BRIDI and make something else out of it by dropping x1 and replacing it with {le} (although that is closer). The result of putting {le} in front of a bridi tail IS a part of thes entence -- where else would it be? I think I am missing your point here. Whose "bridi" are you talking about, not mine and not what Iunderstood your to be. <* * {nei} is not a bridi. It refers to a bridi.> It is anaphora (if it works at all): it refers to a bridi in the way that a pronoun refers to a noun, by standing in for it and saving us writing it again, not the way a word refers to a thing. That is, it is a bridi because it refers to a bridi. <poi contains a new level of the sentence. du'u contains a new levelof the sentence. This is because both of these are followed by a BRIDI. {le} is not followed by a BRIDI. In some situations, as you enjoy pointing out, thething that follows {le} could be a BRIDI on its own (an observative one, usually), but that does not matter. This does not prevent rewriting a {le} phrase with {voi}, for example -but you would have to put a subscript on {ce'u} if there was one in the {le} phrase. Situations like that are the reason subscripts for ce'u were proposed, after all.> Actually, the {ce'u} would probably still not get a subscript, since itwould still have smallest scope, but you could move it up if you wanted -- as you can in any case. Notice that what ahppens in And's rule-- one version anyhow -- is that he makes the containing "sumti" disappear but exactly replaces it with a new sumti which contains a BRIDI and the same internal sumti and such that the whole means the same (officially) -- and this somehow is to prove that the internal sumti, which now is clearly at a different level from the sumti it is contained in was previously at the same level as the sumti it was contained in. I just don'tsee how it follows, but in any case the transformation that is done is trivial and has no bearing on the issue at hand. |