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



I've used "le du" as equivalent to english antecedentless personal pronouns and definite covert arguments. But "lo du" for "zo'e" seems extraordinary. It's fine where "zo'e" is understood as "something/someone", but seems perverse otherwise.

,, And

On 17 Oct 2011 03:24, "Martin Bays" <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:

* Sunday, 2011-10-16 at 21:49 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:


> On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> > * Saturday, 2011-10-15 at...

> Where the referent of "zo'e" is roses, yes.

>
> >    == {zo'e rozgu gi'e xunre}
> >    == {zo'e xunre gi'e rozgu}
> >    == {zo'e noi xunre cu ...

> So far so good.

>
> >    == {lo xunre cu rozgu}
>

> But "zo'e noi xunre" could be changed to "lo xunre" only if the
> referent of "zo'e" was red things. We already know that the referent
> of zo'e in all the previous sentences was roses, so we can't transform
> "zo'e noi xunre" into "lo xunre".
>
> Alternatively: "zo'e" is not like "ko'a", something that gets a
> referent and keeps it more or less indefinitely. The referent of
> "zo'e" gets assigned by context, and the sentence in which it appears
> is very much part of its context. "lo rozgu" == "zo'e noi rozgu" only
> in the context of defining "lo rozgu". With a different context,
> "zo'e" might get assigned a different referent and thus "zo'e noi
> rozgu" might no longer be replaceable by "lo rozgu".
>
> (All of which may amount to saying that "{lo} -> {zo'e noi}" should
> not be taken too literally, and "{zo'e noi} -> {lo}" is even less
> certain.)

OK.

I wonder then whether "{zo'e} == {lo du}" mightn't be a more accurate
summation of the relation between {zo'e} and {lo}.

(assuming that everything, pluralities and kinds included, dus itself)

Martin

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