Re: TECH.GRAM.PROPOSAL: require KU after free-floating tense/modal

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>However, because the "ku" is elidable, some combined tenses don't mean what
>they appear to mean.  Thus "puzu'a cusku" means "expression going on to my
>left and in the past", but "zu'apu cusku", with the space before the time,
>means "zu'aku pu cusku", and gives the "pu" bridi scope, but the "zu'a"
>scope only from the point given, thus:
>
>7)      lo nanmu zu'a[ku] pu cusku
>
>which in prenex form is:
>
>8)      puku da poi nanmu zu'aku zo'u da cusku
>
>In the case of "pu" and "zu'a", which are effectively singular terms, there
>is no problem, but messy things happen with "-roi" tenses and possibly with
>--More--
>some others.  Requiring "ku" means Example 7 ungrammatical without it, and
>so requires a clear signal that there are two tenses in use here.
>
>This makes nothing unsayable, but does remove some rather useless and
>potentiall y
>confusing strings from the domain of what's grammatical.


What I think we intended by zu'apu vs puzu'a is that both would be attached
to the bridi, with scope in the prenex in that order.  Now recognizing that
we IMPLEMENTED this by putting in a "ku" after zu'a, we have put ourselves in
a position where we get confusing scopes.  But this is because we have
changed the understanding of "ku", not that we changed the desired interpre-
tation of zu'apu.

Thus, the obvious question is whether there is any way to make zu'apu work
that does NOT insert the ku and cause the scope confusion, but instead keeps
both zu'a and pu attached to the selbri, and hence bridi scope in the
indicated order.  That is what we really want, I think.

lojbab