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

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

But the problem is that {zi'o}ing off gaps may not be the effect one wants, even 
if one usually doesn't care what goes in the gap.  And, if we are tempted toadd 
that kind of wild card into an already messy situation, where gaps can mean any 
of several things already, we probably should resist the urge.  And fix up the 
whole system (possibly including going back to remove all the rarely used 
places).



----- Original Message ----
From: And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 9, 2011 5:40:07 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural 
variable

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.

-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.