On 14 May 2010 20:47, Daniel Brockman
<daniel@brockman.se> wrote:
The thing about {za'u re'u} is it suggests {za'u so'i re'u}.
It does apply to any time other than the first time, but is *usually* used
to indicate that something happens again after relatively many times.
When I use {za'u re'u}, I'm thinking about that the number in question is larger than another contextually understood number, not about whether or not the number refers to the quantity of "many". For example, if the event of a thief robbing my bag is contextually understood to have happened once in the past and now I want to report a new, second occurence of it, I would likely use {za'u re'u} as {re} is greater than {pa}. It would be the same as {re re'u} except that this wouldn't emphasize {re}'s being greater than certain numbers. If I had to express that the number in question is large to the extent of "many", I would say {so'i re'u}.
{za'u so'i re'u} sounds to me more like {du'e re'u}, "(occuring as) the more than many-th (too-many-th) time".
Also, {pa} is more than {no}, so perhaps {za'u re'u} could apply to "the first time" as well.
By the way, I think it may be a good idea to have an escape hatch for
this kind of lexicalization. A way to say, "interpret this compositionally."
Preferably as a UI. Then we would get "interpret this lexically" for free.
For example: ZEI is "interpret this tanru lexically". But how do we say
"do not interpret this tanru lexically"?
It might be irrelevant but {ta'u} comes to mind. I don't know much about the difference between {ta'u} "making a tanru" and {ta'unai} "expanding the tanru", though.