Re: [lojban] [oz] {ny poi cy ke'a falcru}

[Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com>]

On 7 February 2014 23:51, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 10:32 PM, Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com> wrote:

On 7 February 2014 22:40, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

I know about the rule for quantifiers, but it still can be seen as the relative clause adding a statement about the bound variable. It doesn't change the fact that removing the relative clause preserves the truth of a sentence. The parse doesn't help here, by the way.

(ko'a is not a bound variable though)

Removing the relative clause does, in general, change the truth of the sentence. Consider for example "ro ko'a poi broda cu brode" vs "ro ko'a brode", or "no ko'a poi broda cu brode" vs "no ko'a brode". 

Yeah, of course. Doesn't change the point, though, that {no ko'a poi broda} corresponds to {no da poi me ko'a gi'e broda} just as {no lo broda ku poi brode} corresponds to {no da poi me lo broda gi'e brode}. The quantification introduces a {me} that is absent in a plain description, and that is my point.
 

 

Consider other examples:
(1) {ti poi toldi}: At least in the way my mind works, when I point at something, I point at a specific thing; I just need to give a clue to the listener about what I am exactly pointing at. It is not like I am pointing at a bunch of things and selecting a butterfly out of them.

(2) {ma'a po'u lo pilno be me'o denpa bu girzu}: When I use a personal pronoun, I have a clear conscience about who I am talking about. Again, I just have to give a clue to the se cusku because the pronoun is too general. 

 Then I think "ti noi toldi", "ma'a no'u ..." would make more sense. "poi" is there to restrict the referents of "ti"/"ma'a", not to just comment on them. 

(3) {ra poi danlu}: An alternative to {lo bi'u nai mlatu}.

I think that should be "noi". Using "poi" to restrict from different possible antecedents of "ra" seems like a metalinguistic deviation from ordinary "poi". 

Then we have different understandings about the kinds of relative clauses. To me, the difference between {noi} and {poi} is not semantic, but pragmatic. It is all about Information Structure: When I use a incidental clause, I am indicating that the selsku is supposed to understand the reference without the additional commentary, while a restrictive one indicates that the information is essential to get the reference right. In the words of the CLL:

"The difference between restrictive and incidental relative clauses is that restrictive clauses provide information that is essential to identifying the referent of the sumti to which they are attached, whereas incidental relative clauses provide additional information which is helpful to the listener but is not essential for identifying the referent of the sumti."

Granted, it is very understandable that our two notions be confused with each other. On a typical situation, the universe of discourse has, say, two salient cars. In this case, {lo karce} is expected to refer to both of them, so, if I wanted to specify one of them with a relative clause, it would be essential information for understanding the reference, and thus restrictive, as in {lo karce poi blanu}; while if I wanted to talk about both of them, {lo karce} would be enough, and any relative clause should be thus incidental, as in {lo karce noi melbi}.

It turns out we would arrive at exactly the same conclusions from your reasoning. The topic of this thread is one of the few examples in which a conflict appears.

How do others feel about this?

mu'o
mi'e .asiz.

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