Re: [lojban] zo'u is inconsistent

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Ian Johnson <blindbravado@gmail.com> wrote:
> {zo'u} works like this if I understand correctly:
>
> PA da PA de ... zo'u -> quantifying da de ...
> PA bu'a PA bu'e ... zo'u -> quantifying bu'a bu'e ...
> <any other sumti> zo'u -> defining the topic in an imprecisely defined sense

Minor terminological quibble: It is not "zo'u" that does these things.
All that "zo'u" does is separate the prenex terms from the matrix
terms. It's the quantifiers that do the quantifying, and what they
quantify is a bridi (the one appearing as the matrix), not the
variables that they bind. But your substantive point, that
quantification over selbri is a complete and utter hack, is correct. I
too have sort of complained about this in the past. Nobody really
cares. Nobody actually uses "bu'a"s anyway.

The use of the prenex for topic terms I don't really find problematic.
You can even think of the domains of quantification as some kind of
topic, so that part is not really too inconsistent.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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