Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable

[And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>]

John E. Clifford, On 09/10/2011 23:09:
> Clearly having {zi'o} as a value for {zo'e} would
> just make a bad situation even worse,

Yes, as I said.

> as would {zi'o} as a value for an unfilled space.

No -- this is clearly not clearly so, since you are replying to a message in which I say zi'o for unfilled place would be a good thing.

It's a good thing in the current circumstances, which are circumstances in which there are quite a lot of places that one would want to zi'o off most of the time, and no strong convention of using overt zi'o when the speaker's intention is such that zi'o is appropriate and zo'e isn't. I think speakers generally do mean "zo'e or zi'o" when a place is left unfilled.

If more comprehensive reforms were possible, it would be better to just abolish every gismu place that one might reasonably often want to zi'o. Then the virtues of having covert zi'o in empty places would evaporate.

--And.

> On Oct 9, 2011, at 16:08, And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>  wrote:
> > IMO the best rule would be for empty places to be fillable by zi'o or by zo'e, but not for zi'o to be a possible value of zo'e. Disambiguation could be effected by using an overt zi'o or zo'e. Allowing zi'o as a value of zo'e would permit undisambiguable ambiguity -- of course a very bad thing. The advantage of letting empty places be fillable by covert zi'o is that it would overcome the problem of superfluous gismu places that usage tends to forget about.

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