quantifiers on sumti - late response

["Dylan P. Thurston" <dpt@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

la lojbab cusku di'e
 > ... (lots of stuff, including) ...
 > The relevant grammar portion is thus:
 >  
 > < ... 
 > <sumti_tail_111          :  sumti_tail_A_112
 > <                           /* inner-quantified sumti relative clause */
 > <                        |  relative_clauses_121  sumti_tail_A_112
 > < ...

Wow, the YACC grammar has comments!  I should take to reading that
instead of the BNF.

...  (lots more, including the "three men in the room stuff".  I get so
embarrassed every time someone else points out my really stupid grammar
mistakes.)  ...

 > The specific historical reason is the "SE SORME" = ze mensi issue that I
 > described the other day.  JCB thought it loose and illogical to allow
 > the construction at all,

I agree, but since

 > ...it kept creeping back into actual usage
 > (i.e. the little Loglanders in his head always used it %^),

I'll bow to the forces of usage.  (Was he the only one using the
language at the time?)

 > ...
 > There are some limits to what you can put before the bare selbri in a
 > simple description.  We have expanded this to allow for preposed
 > relative clauses after the Finnish model, and this took considerable
 > work and debate.  A recent proposal to allow preposed "be/bei"
 > constructs was embedded in last week's discussion - it might work, and
 > might be useful, to people with a preposed grammar native structure.
 > Veijo???  But no guarantees we could make it grammatical, and it is not
 > importnat enough to justify a change if it causes anything more than a
 > trivial expansion rule (if even then).

Just to support this: since I thought (incorrectly) that, e.g.,
        le mi do se cusku
used this preposed grammar, I guess I find it natural too.  (This
would be written
        le be mi bei do se cusku
with the current proposal.)

 > ... <more than I have time to respond to right now> ...
 > lojbab

mu'o mi'e. dilyn.