[lojban] Re: loi preti be fi lo nincli zo'u tu'e

[Pierre Abbat <phma@webjockey.net>]

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 11:48, Martin Bays wrote:
> No, that's not what I meant. I get all that stuff. Sorry, I was far from
> clear (damned rarbau thinking). What I meant was that in {lu'i .abu boi xi
> .ibu poi .ibu cmima tau .ibu}, the poi phrase isn't (I think) binding to
> the .ibu, which is just a lerfu string as part of the subscript, and if I
> understand my EBNF right NOI can only bind to a sumti. The entire {.abu
> boi xi .ibu} is acting as a sumti here, so the poi relates to that. And
> the poi phrase gives a condition on .ibu, and hence on a *part of the
> description* of ke'a, rather than ke'a itself.
>
> So what I'm asking is - is this valid? Does it have the obvious meaning?
> Similarly, is {lo broda be da ku poi da brode} legit? Would anything
> change if ko'a or .ibu replaced da? How about if ko'a had been used
> before, and still had scope, or if a recent sumti had a description
> beginning with an .ibu?

It is valid, and does mean what you mean it to mean. There's nothing wrong 
with rarbau thinking if you think in the right rarbau - in this case, lo 
cabna xelso .e lo xebro. Both have a word ("pou" fa'u "asher") which 
corresponds to {poi} or {noi}, a relative conjunction, and both these words 
originally meant "where".

> Also, and relatedly, is {ro boi .ibu poi kacna'u zo'u .ibu broda}
> quantifying over .ibu, or is the prenex just giving a subject restricting
> whatever .ibu already refers to to natural numbers?

It is quantifying over .ibu. See chapter 16, verse 4.

phma