In a message dated 4/10/2002 11:18:34 AM Central Daylight Time, araizen@newmail.net writes:> 'nei' refers to the current bridi, and so 'le nei' refers to the x1 of I won't insist upon it, but it remains an inelegance in the system, requiring repetition of some rules and preventing some natural moves. <>The > problem with {nei} is that it is in three bridi (in some sense of that term) > and there is then the question of which is the "current" one. You say it is > the middle one of the three and the closest one that is not an immediate > sumti, so I take it that your definition of "current" comes down to that > specification. That seems a good choice, but not an obvious one. 'le + SELBRI' may logically imply a bridi, but grammatically it requires a selbri, not a bridi. The BNF definition is: sumti-6 = (LA | LE) # sumti-tail /KU#/ (among other things) sumti-tail = [sumti-6 [relative-clauses]] sumti-tail-1 | relative-clauses sumti-tail-1 sumti-tail-1 = [quantifier] selbri [relative clauses] | quantifier sumti ^^^^^^ If you want to say, e.g. 'the one who loves his/herself' you need to use 'sevzi' as in 'le sezyprami' or use a construction with a bridi, like 'ko'a poi prami le nei'.> This being one of the places where a bridi-possibility is denied in a sumti construction. The problem remains: the so-called bridi is merely a part of a selbri used in a sumti, as remote from a "real" bridi as the one buried after LE (perhaps more so since it doesn't even have to have a real-world referent). So, by the same reasoning that says the "selbri" (it isn't, of course, really a selbri, since there is no bridi) in a simple description is not a bridi, this _expression_ can't be a bridi either, so {nei} can't refer to its first term. I know the grammar is written to allow it, but that just shows that the grammar is inconsistent with its explanation of what it is about. If we learn the grammar as an uninterpreted system, this would be no problem, but we learn it as an explanation of what is going on in the langauge. As such, it breaks down at this point, one way or the other -- it either allows something that it ought not or disallows something that should get in. This is waht I mean by saying picking the middle possibility is not an obvious choice, even if it is officially the right one. |