[lojban] Re: use of ko'a

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

Adam Lopresto:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, And Rosta wrote:
>
> > Translate English "They went." I can see two ways:
> >
> > 1. ko'a klama
> > 2. le du cu klama
> >
> > Neither uses anaphora, and I cannot see any way of using anaphora.
>
> Who went?  "They" is anaphora, it's only meaningful in English when we've
> already been talking about some group.

It is only meaningful when the referent is accessible in the mutually
manifest context. A common, but not the only, way for it to be accessible
is for it to already have been talked about.

{le du} is a perfectly acceptable translation of "they". The question is:
is unbound ko'a meaningless, or is it equivalent to {le du}.

> And if that's the case, there's nothing wrong with ra. I'm also curious
> why you couldn't translate "They went." as
>
> 3. klama

Because {klama} can quite plausibly mean "someone went" or, less plausibly,
"everyone went". IOW, the meaning of {klama} is broader than the meaning
of "They went".

> which doesn't tell us a thing about who went, but neither does unbound
ko'a.
> If you're going to have to glork who ko'a is, then why don't you just use
zo'e
> the way it's intended?

{zo'e} generalizes over all sumti, including quantified variables and zi'o;
it is not restricted to specific referents.

--And.