From rob@twcny.rr.com Fri Nov 02 12:55:19 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 2 Nov 2001 20:55:18 -0000 Received: (qmail 39255 invoked from network); 2 Nov 2001 20:55:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m5.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Nov 2001 20:55:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout5.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.122) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Nov 2001 20:55:17 -0000 Received: from mail1.twcny.rr.com (mail1-0 [24.92.226.74]) by mailout5.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.6/Road Runner 1.12) with ESMTP id fA2KtFh19244 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:55:15 -0500 (EST) Received: from riff ([24.92.246.4]) by mail1.twcny.rr.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-59787U250000L250000S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:55:14 -0500 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.32 #1 (Debian)) id 15zlKb-0000I9-00 for ; Fri, 02 Nov 2001 15:54:25 -0500 Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 15:54:25 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] lo with discourse-scope? Message-ID: <20011102155425.B879@twcny.rr.com> Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com References: <20011102014102.A2043@twcny.rr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com From: Rob Speer X-Yahoo-Profile: squeekybobo On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 01:17:16PM -0000, And Rosta wrote: > > I base this on the use of {bi'u pa nanmu...} in "bradi je bandu" to > > mean "There's a man..." > > Just {pa nanmu} means "there's a man". Of course it means that literally. But in English we say "There's a..." or "Once there was a..." when introducing something new. > {bi'u pa nanmu} if sentence-initial means the whole sentence is new info. > Otherwise, it's the word before > bi'u that gives new info. I would interpret the new information in {pa bi'u > nanmu cu broda} as the statement that the cardinality of {lo'i nanmu gi'e > broda} is 1. Does it mean that? Shouldn't it be "at least 1"? I'm fairly sure that saying {pa nanmu cu broda} does not exclude the possibility that {lo drata nanmu cu broda}. You have a point with the focus of {bi'u}. Then the right way would be {lo bi'u nanmu}, and to be specific {lo bi'u pa nanmu}. Then again, marking the whole sentence as new info would have about the same effect, so there you end up with {bi'u pa nanmu}. I'm not sure if this is why Arnt used that in the poem; {bi'u pa nanmu} also fits the rhythm better than anything else. -- la rab.spir noi bi'unai sarji zo gumri