From gordon.dyke@bluewin.ch Thu Jul 04 00:38:30 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: gordon.dyke@bluewin.ch X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 4 Jul 2002 07:38:30 -0000 Received: (qmail 62640 invoked from network); 4 Jul 2002 07:38:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 4 Jul 2002 07:38:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta11n.bluewin.ch) (195.186.1.211) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 4 Jul 2002 07:38:30 -0000 Received: from oemcomputer (62.202.160.227) by mta11n.bluewin.ch (Bluewin AG 6.0.053) id 3D0EE29700281698 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 4 Jul 2002 09:38:28 +0200 Message-ID: <004d01c2232d$fa0187e0$e3a0ca3e@oemcomputer> To: "jboste" References: <17f.a91c11b.2a54c6a2@aol.com> Subject: Re: [lojban] pro-sumti question Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 09:39:08 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 From: "G. Dyke" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=81437350 X-Yahoo-Profile: gregvdyke This an issue that (although solvable) I feel might be a likely candidate for an experimental cmavo (compared with other experimental cmavo which definately don't _need_ to exist. For that apples and oranges case a few weeks ago: I've had wanted to say something of the type: le ni [apples] (kei) le ni [oranges] (kei) [both of which] no'u su'o pa cu sumji li 12 we need a cmavo which will group sumti together in much le same way as vu'o groups logically connected sumti together. we could then have: le gerku le mlatu xu'o goi ko'a cu jersi... damn! that would break the grammar completely. Or maybe a pro-sumti which refers to le go'i .e le se go'i .e le te go'i etc. Greg ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 11:29 PM Subject: Re: [lojban] pro-sumti question > In a message dated 7/3/2002 4:10:29 PM Central Daylight Time, > lojban-out@lojban.org writes: > > > > I'm fine with context resolving those particular issues. I don't > > think _all_ the pro-sumti approaches can be realistically unambiguous > > (long live ra and ru). "le remei" seems like the best solution > > mentioned. The unbounded ko'a approach seems semi-dangerous to me, > > as it could damage the intended unambiguity of selma'o ko'a things. > > I'd rather munge "ru" than ko'a stuff (and that seems unneccesary > > with just "le remei"). > > > > Hell, they can't even be theoretically unambiguous except for a few special > cases. The issue here is whether they can reasonably be expected to get the > hearer to the right thing(s in this case). In this case we do not have any > dyads mentioned so far (in the little context we have) nor do we have two > individuals explicitly mentioned -- merely some number of dogs and some > number of cats. Can the hearer -- will the hearer likely -- put all of this > together to work out that the number is 1 in each case and that we are now > speaking of the two referents together? How can we help him? Of course, > later context may do it-- "the dog more than the cat," say, added on to the > problem sentence:{ le gerku cu zmadu le mlatu le du'u ce'u tatpi}. But can > we do something at the pronoun itself? I am not clear what was the matter > with {ri e ra}, which is almost unambiguous -- as close as we are likely to > get, anyhow -- and as short as most suggestions. >