On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:36:45AM -0500, Ian Johnson wrote:But {ra po'u pa plise ge'u mo} would be a valid question, wouldn't it?
> You are correct that it does not convey "Give me an apple, I don't have one
> in mind", since there's no statement about whether you have one in mind.
> However, the command is satisfied no matter which apple they give you, so
> pragmatically speaking it seems to do the job. It's just a bit subtle
> because speech acts other than statements are a bit subtle in general.
>
> However, since {pa plise} has no referents, I'm not sure whether "which
> one?" is actually a valid counterquestion. This is a peculiarity of working
> with {da} in general, sort of like the other thread I posted recently.
I'm quite sure I did not fully understand the da/zo'e usage up to now,
so this might be wrong.
The major difference in pragmatical usage is whether "which one do you mean?"
is a valid counterquestion. If there is a proper way to utter
"give me an apple" that implies you don't know or care about which apple you get
and that renders the counterquestion "which one?" inappropriate, then I'm fine.
{ko dunda lo narselte'i plise mi} could work out, but I'm not sure.
(I would prefer na over na'e here).
{ma pinka}?
v4hn