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du'u in lieu of ka (was: Re: [lojban] Toward a {ce'u} record
pc:
#cowan@mercury.ccil.org writes:
#
#> Or 3) Not so -- some {ce'u} may be implicit, and it is up to the
#> intelligence of the hearer/reader to figure out where they go.
#
#Yes, that is a position too and, indeed, probably what we have been
#mainly working with lo these many years. But it is hideously soft-line and
#illogical, since it makes every {ka} phrase vague (or ambiguous,
#depending on how hard-line you are). The problem is that glorking is
#unreliable at best: witness pc and cowan on {le ka prami}. Of course,
#people often are vague about just what they mean, but rarely, I think,
#ambiguous in just this way.
I agree, but there is a remedy within the baseline, so long as zo'e
cannot be read as a ce'u (and if it can, then existing usage of
du'u is unspeakably ambiguous): And The Cowan has averred
that construing zo'e as ce'u is as heinous as construing it as
noda.
Since {du'u} doesn't guarantee the presence of a covert or overt
ce'u, using {du'u ... ce'u} instead of {ka ... (ce'u)} forces all ce'u
to be overt. Thus those of us who are rightly worried about the
horrible vagueness/ambiguity of allowing covert ce'u within
ka bridi can simply not use ka and use du'u instead.
--And.